


The Case of the Moebius Trip

by Bitenomnom



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, BAMF!John, Death, Drug Use, F/M, Fear, Gen, Love, M/M, Overdose, Post-Reichenbach, Time Travel, Young Sherlock, hinted Sherlock/Sebastian Wilkes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:32:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 129,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitenomnom/pseuds/Bitenomnom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John finally gives in and accepts a case for the first time since Sherlock fell eight months ago, he finds himself in a unique position: in possession of what his client calls a time machine, and desperate enough to give it a go. If it works, he could travel back in time.<br/>If it works, he could save Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fading Light and Cooling Space

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired [if loosely so] by Ludo's album "Broken Bride," so I'll be titling the sections of the story with lines from Ludo's songs. If you know them, you may also notice some references (just for fun, not at all necessary to the understanding of the story).  
> This story will parallel the themes of Series 2: love, fear, and death. But this time, it's John's turn.
> 
> Many, many thanks to [Morwen_Eledhwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) and Lani for the brainstorming sessions and assistance and support! 
> 
> Please let me know if I have made any errors, especially any errors relating to my complete lack of experience with anything British.
> 
> ***

It began like a bad movie:

Thunderstorm. Junk yard. Desperate man.

Because John _was_ desperate. He was, apparently, desperate enough to take on a case, after spending the past eight months turning others down as politely as he could. (“I just can’t see things like he does—did. Nobody could. I’m sorry.”)

He was desperate enough that, “Andrew disappeared in a machine and never came back,” sounded interesting. Or maybe: he was desperate enough that if the bloke who’d come in stuttering such an unbelievable tale as he did was telling the truth, and if the same thing happened to John, he’d be relieved: so be it. He could do with some—travel or—whatever it was. Searing pain? Might at least be interesting.

The machine, which had reportedly come back without its operator, looked like something better suited to sizzling, gruesome electrification than what the client had described. He leaned over and shielded the rain from his eyes while holding his torch to the seat to inspect first it and then what appeared to be some sort of clutch beside it. No skin burnt onto anything, then. Well: it was dinged, here and there—a rough landing? Likely it had just been dumped into the place carelessly.

He shone the light along the curved frame of the thing, waiting to find a splatter of blood, a scrap of a t-shirt, anything. He flipped open a small, covered panel just behind where he supposed the driver would sit. Cords swung out of the compartment, all four or five ends joining together just before disappearing into the encased bulk of the machine. Now this was familiar: That end there matched to his phone; this one would easily plug into a wall socket—American, by the look of it—and on the cord beside it, another, proper wall socket. One of the ends was completely unrecognizable, but John wasn’t sure if that was a particularly strange feature of the machine, or just his lack of knowledge on such things showing through. He snapped a photo with his mobile for good measure—maybe someone else would know.

“Well,” he muttered to himself, “let’s give this a try, then.” As his eyes fixed on the screen of his mobile—1:43 AM—he recalled what little information he’d managed to gather from his rattled client, one Brian Teasley, almost exactly twelve hours earlier.

“And do you have any idea what it—the machine—was meant to do?” he’d asked, after Brian had told his story.

Brian had wrung his hands, eyes fixed on one wrist. “Uh, he said—I mean—promise you’ll still look into it for me? It sounds a little…crazy…but I swear I’m not lying.”

What else was there to do? “Yeah. Of course. What did he say it was for?”

“Okay—he said—I’m not making this up—he said—it was a…a time machine.”

“I can see why you added the ‘sounds crazy’ disclaimer,” John smiled a little, scribbling into his notepad. He swallowed past the distinct feeling that his heart had just skipped three beats. When he glanced back up to see Brian’s lip wobbling, he added, “Don’t worry. I promised I’d take a look, didn’t I? Some of our most interesting cases were…” He trailed off and glimpsed back to his pad, pretending to mark down another note. “And where is it now?”

“I dumped it off at this rubbish dump,” he handed over a slip of paper with an address and a number.

“Should’ve left it where it was.”

“In the middle of Andrew’s house?” he huffed. “It’s a good job I was the only one there when it popped in—well, exploded in, more like. I can’t imagine what my girlfriend would’ve done.” He sucked in a breath and sighed it out. “I didn’t know what it’d do. What if it blew up, eh? I don’t know how it works. I had to get it out. I live there, too, you know.” 

“Can you give me that address, then? Might come by and have a look there as well.” John flipped to a new page and handed his notepad to Brian.

Brian nodded, fishing a pen from his pocket and scrawling an address. “Just so you know…I…I didn’t do it. I mean, it probably seems like I just…like I did it, like I…killed him…and made up this weird story, but Andrew was…”

“It’s fine. I’m sure we’ll—I’ll find something.”

“I thought about trying to use it myself, can you believe it? That machine. To see if it worked and…and try to find him or…you know? Sounds pretty stupid, but there you have it…”

John smiled. “I’ll go take a look tonight. Would you like to meet me and come along?”

“No,” Brian shivered. “Too spooky for me, rubbish dumps. Just call me with what you find out, yeah? Or come by,” he nodded to his address on the paper John held. “I’ll be about all day tomorrow.”

And so here he was, in the rubbish dump on his own. John braced himself and plugged in his phone, waiting (probably too hopefully, he thought, and definitely too foolishly) to see the clock tick minutes forward or back like seconds, or hours like minutes…

Instead, his screen went black.

“Stupid—” he grunted, pressing down on the phone’s power button.

Nothing.

Well, that was absurd. He’d charged it just before coming, in case this took an inordinate amount of time or an inordinate number of phone calls and internet searching to sort out.

Except—it wasn’t that _nothing_ had happened. One green LED inside the small compartment on the machine had flickered on. John pressed his ear to the casing and heard a faint whirr. He shone his torch on the console in front of the seat—“3.4%,” read a small display.

He unplugged and pocketed his mobile and a smirk crept onto his lips. “Huh.”

 

***

The trip to the flat was too slow.

But time had always been a strange, fluid thing for John, and frequently it was too slow—or, when he had angled his back to block buffeting sand and stop up a wound, just slow enough.

Time hadn’t moved slowly with Sherlock. Everything was fast with Sherlock, and so it wasn’t fair at all, how slowly these eight months had passed when the year and a half before them had been so short.

This taxi ride was just long enough for John to try to think of some other reason to be so excited—this was another interesting development in the case; he was one step closer to preventing someone from being arrested unjustly—and then to realize the futility of the exercise. The best he could do would be to prepare himself for disappointment—the moment he would realize that the machine was really built for some sort of video game, or was just a completely inoperable, flashy distraction from a devious crime. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Andrew had abandoned it and fled elsewhere, and Brian only thought he’d disappeared.

As Brian had shrugged his jacket back on, John had asked why Andrew had tried to build a time machine at all—Wealth? Scientific curiosity?

“His wife died,” Brian said. “He was heartbroken. He spent fifteen years building that machine.”

“Was Andrew a physicist? An engineer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. He was a bleedin’ genius. He knew everything.”

“Apparently not,” John muttered, and he wasn’t sure Brian had even heard him until he saw him shaking his head.

Gradually, after Sherlock’s death, a slow trickle of supporters had come to John asking for help. At first, he assumed it was out of pity—to entertain him, to make him feel important, to make him feel better. He had posted to his blog: “I’m sorry. I’m not investigating any cases. Please contact Scotland Yard with your problems.” There were a few insistent commenters: “You must have learned _something_ from him. He saved my husband’s cousin from being poisoned, you know? I saw him figure it out. I know he wasn’t a fake. Please, Dr. Watson—can’t you help?”

He’d met Lestrade for a pint a couple of times. “Sorry I can’t let you in on any cases, mate,” he’d told John. “I’m lucky to have a job at all.”

“I know,” John had said. “I understand.” He didn’t want to go anyway: or he did, because he knew that he would hear Sherlock speaking over his shoulder about overlooked details, muttering about idiots and obviousness. But he also knew that he would turn around and see nothing, and listen closer and hear nothing, and he would turn back to Lestrade to see brows creased in concern because for all the nothing John observed, his heart would show heavy on his face.

Instead, John mostly kept to his very regular hours at the surgery. When he came home—to Mary’s flat, that was, which wasn’t _really_ home, was it?—he scanned the news for anything interesting; occasionally, he would find an interview or quote from a client he remembered. At the rate these people were coming forward, Kitty Riley’s stories wouldn’t last long. The thought was satisfying, but not satisfaction enough to make John stop racking his brain for why Sherlock hadn’t seen it coming: Moriarty’s lies falling to pieces in a matter of months. Sherlock had to have known it would happen, so why…

As the taxi pulled up to the flat, John leapt out as well as he could with his cane and hurried up the stairs. He found that he could still only go to Baker Street for small amounts of time—sometimes he’d spend a night or two—always alone, like it was a shrine he needed to keep sacred, or a crime scene to be left untouched until someone could uncover what had really happened the day Sherlock didn’t come back to it. He supposed it was, in ways—both of those things, a crime scene and a shrine. He scanned the area occasionally for cameras planted by Mycroft, who was now paying the entirety of the rent for the place whether John asked him to stop or not (he hadn’t—but those were Mycroft’s own words, texted to John months ago), as if doing so could possibly serve as some sort of an apology to John. (Perhaps it was an apology to Sherlock—John wasn’t sure.) Tonight seemed like the right time to go to Baker Street…to channel some of Sherlock, to remember how to see, how to _observe_. It was much too late, anyway, to go back to Mary’s, where he usually stayed; she would be asleep. He had no doubt she’d wanted to come along, the way her eyes had shone with excitement when he told her about the case.

“Bit far-fetched, isn’t it?” she’d giggled, and then leaned in conspiratorially. “What do you think really happened?”

John couldn’t say, his mouth hanging open for a moment and then shutting again. Mary’s lips pulled together and stretched into a smile: a sad one. The loveliest thing about Mary, John thought, was that unlike everyone else, she wasn’t trying to push him out of mourning. She rolled with it gracefully. She didn’t make it her business to tell him what Sherlock would have wanted. She didn’t even ask to go along with him to Baker Street, when he went, although he was sure she was curious; Mary had started reading John’s blog after the papers had began running articles on Sherlock, had become something of a fan. That wasn’t how he met her, though—that had been odder.

Tonight, though, they’d had a perfectly normal evening of take-out and crap telly. “Good luck,” she’d peeked over her laptop to say to him as he’d shrugged a jacket on. Not a single word about, “Are you really going to a rubbish dump to search for what one potentially unstable man had referred to as a time machine?” No, “Try to be back before eleven, won’t you?” She’d said, “Call me if you need anything,” and, “I’ll see you later, dear.”

He’d said, “I might stay the night at two two one.”

“Okay.” And she smiled, and that was all.

And so here John was, back at 221B, if only momentarily. He breathed in deeply, holding the air inside as if he could steep his lungs in it long enough that he could become infused with it, and began what had become his routine: he thought of it as practice. He practiced observing, here, because that was of much more use than remembering things, memories that made John’s veins thump uncomfortably angry and hot and close to his skin, stinging his nerves—memories like that once, not quite a year ago, Sherlock had lined up seven different types of apple on the arm of his chair, a notch sliced into each, and left them there to sit, circling the chair and lecturing John on the importance of recreating the original conditions for cases where the results could be highly sensitive to the environment. That was his explanation, at least, for occasionally misting the area with a spray bottle. One “stray spurt of water” (Sherlock’s phrasing) had made its way to John’s face—John had been one hundred percent certain it was intentional, and so he had shoved his laptop to the side and stood to wrestle the bottle from Sherlock’s hand. From there, he had spritzed his flatmate in the face about eight times before Sherlock took the high ground, removed the bottle from John’s grip, unscrewed the top, and threw the remainder of the water onto John’s jumper.

By the time John’s jumper had dried out, they’d eaten all the apples—Sherlock had gnawed into them with surprising vigor.

“Measuring the deterioration of the core should be sufficient,” he’d said through a mouthful of the last one, and stacked the final core onto the arm of the chair.

“’Course,” John agreed. “What case is this for again?”

“Nothing important,” he’d answered, quickly enough that John thought better than to ask further. “Cold case Lestrade sent my way ‘to cheer me up’ after—”

“After Moriarty’s court case, yeah.”

Sherlock had nodded and, John thought, looked as if he might be about to tell him something important, by the way he leaned in a little. His eyes widened and relaxed, irises stretching and shrinking like cameras finding focus, prepared to capture a reaction in detail deeper than the average eye could see. Sherlock opened his mouth, glanced at his chair, and said, “On second thought, I’ll need to replace them after all.”

“You—why?”

“This case is important,” he snapped.

“But you just said—”

“We need milk, as well, don’t we?”

“Sherlock, I’ve already been to the grocery for you once today—”

“I’ll go, of course.” And Sherlock had swept out, and left John to stare at the cores along the arm of the chair. He’d been about to throw them out, but reminded himself that Sherlock probably still intended to include them in the experiment. The next morning, he’d found six cores in the garbage.

John released his breath and took in another lungful or two of air, chest rattling more than he’d expected. Six cores: That was a thing that he had observed. That memory, that wasn’t an observation. That wasn’t what he was here to do. That was why his chest was rattling, that was why he was going to keep his head on and simply observe now. So: The arm of the chair, now devoid of apples in any state of deterioration. Completely clean, in fact, the whole chair—something Sherlock had done around the same time. Well, it was hardly clean anymore; it was covered in a thin sheet of dust. If Sherlock could see the dust patterns here, John thought, he would know that his violin and his skull hadn’t moved an inch in the past eight months. He would see that only infrequently did a saucer occupy the space that had been freed by the microscope and chemistry equipment Mrs. Hudson had boxed up and donated. He would probably point out with a dismissive flick of his wrist that it was clear as day from the orientation and state of the dishes in the cupboards that some moron kept making one too many cups of tea. John had done it a few times on accident, and it became something of an experiment in evaporation: the cups were stained in rings around the inside. Sherlock would remark on how fantastically helpful it was, that when water fled to the air it left everything else behind. John thought it was damn inconvenient, but he couldn’t just scrub the rings out, could he? They were evidence. Data. The tea was there, and then it wasn’t. Because of evaporation. Obviously.

John continued his path around the flat, flicking through observations. Handprints on the window: not his, too big. He hadn’t intentionally kept them there; he just hadn’t cleaned the window for some time, and happened to notice them about half a year ago, and now they were a part of his observations practice, and he wasn’t done observing them yet, so he couldn’t very well wash them off _now_ , could he? Sherlock hadn’t been done observing the seventh apple core. John had spent very little time in Sherlock’s room, but, prompted by an awful smell several months ago, had entered just long enough to find the core there, the sticky sugars that had seeped off the apple adhering it to the beside table.

So he could keep these perfectly unscented handprints as long as he damn well pleased. He leaned in to observe them more closely, trying not to breathe too heavily on them. He observed the curtains, and the mysterious slice that started halfway down one of them that he hadn’t noticed until some time after it happened.

“What’s that from?” he’d asked Sherlock, the corners of his lips pulling down as he motioned to the rip.

“Wednesday, August the fourth. Honestly, John, how is it that you can fail to notice something so obvious for seven weeks and then spontaneously observe it from across the room?”

John hadn’t dignified that with a response, and had asked nothing further.

He observed his own chair: still in the same place as always. The feet had probably merged with the carpet by now, or burrowed through it. Of course, the same could be said of all of the fixtures in the flat. When John stayed at Baker Street, he found himself as a ghost, unable to move anything, leaving just the faintest prints upon the furniture.

It was quiet, hauntingly so—like a church at midnight. Only the sober press of his feet into the carpet filled his ears at this hour; before, this would have been about the time that Sherlock would be most likely to retrieve and play his violin—just about when everyone else had started getting settled into sleep. John was so unused to sleeping to complete silence: Mary helped, her light breathing and occasional kicking off of sheets grounding him within the silence and the dark when he stayed at her flat. Here, at Baker Street, now, there was no such thing. Someone like himself, John thought, could only bear to live in such a place for so long. Like in the short amount of time he’d spent by himself when he arrived back to London from Afghanistan, his nightmares had become progressively worse while he stayed here, in the quiet, just after Sherlock’s death: Sherlock leapt from the roof of the flat; Sherlock, rather than the mannequin, hung in the entry to the living room; Sherlock had been building a secret trap-door in the kitchen, and one day made John watch him plummet down through it, and John looked down into it and saw only fire. Sherlock, when he’d been—when he’d been at Baker Street, he must have known, he must have deciphered how horribly John slept without noise. He saved some louder experiments for when John trudged up the stairs to bed; he developed a habit of speaking to himself at night; he got the sudden urge play his violin at hours that anyone else in his right mind would be dozing off. John once feigned sleep in his armchair and cracked an eye open to see that Sherlock was (badly) simulating clumsiness while he arranged some samples in the refrigerator. The violin, though, had been his favorite. The air in the flat was stiflingly still without some lingering, keening note cutting through it.

Mary had come to him as something of a blessing, several weeks after Sherlock had jumped, just as John had been contemplating moving in with Harry—anyone—to escape 221B for a while. Mycroft had called once to offer assistance, but John could hear from how he said it that Mycroft already knew what his answer would be. John and Mary, though, had hit it right off.

“It must be awful,” she’d said over dinner, “living there, you know, after…”

“It is,” John admitted. “I’d stay someplace else, but I haven’t really found…” He hadn’t looked, either, of course, for fear of actually leaving Baker Street for whoever would take it next—leaving Mrs. Hudson. It hadn’t been until later that month that he’d found the rent already paid, and gotten Mycroft’s text.

“How about you come to my flat?” she suggested, and then flushed. “Not like that, I mean—I have a rather comfortable sofa. You can kip there for a few nights if you’d like.”

“‘Not like that,’ is it?”

“Oh! Well—if you’d like, it could be like that, too,” she laughed. “I just didn’t want to…I didn’t know if you were…I mean…”

“What?” He’d half expected to hear “gay.”

“You know, if you...since your friend just…so maybe you’re…still…”

John’s expression sobered. “Yeah. Well…yeah. Maybe slower would be better. The rather comfortable sofa it is, then.” He smiled wryly. “Thank you.”

Mary smiled back. “John,” she said, and leaned in conspiratorially, “kiss me.”

And he did.

The memory no longer seemed out of place while he was here; John had thought of it plenty of times while he was visiting Baker Street. It was one memory that he allowed himself guiltlessly, because it wasn’t _about_ Baker Street. It was a strange moment, a mystery well suited to long glances at Sherlock’s chair. Sometimes, he replayed that moment as if it had taken place elsewhere; once, he had tried different people. Mary had had a soft confidence, then, leaning in, like she knew something John didn’t, eyes gleaming with eagerness for him to kiss her so that he could figure it out, too.

He hadn’t figured anything out, though, except that he might want to do it again sometime. Mary had pulled back aglow, touching her lips.

John licked his own lips at the memory, plugged in his phone to charge, and compared his laptop cable to the photo on his mobile—no good. Well, he could bring his laptop and use it to charge his phone, then, and try plugging his phone into the machine to see what would happen. Sherlock would’ve scoffed at his rather unscientific process—good. Maybe if he did enough completely stupid things, Sherlock would come back and tell him off for it—for that and his unscientific tea rings, and for getting rid of his microscope, and for not using the proper methodology to preserve the prints on the window.

 

***

 

On his way back to the rubbish dump, at 2:54 AM, John closed his eyes and tried to imagine Sherlock falling backwards. How far back would John go, if he could go back? Would he ignore Sherlock’s command, refuse to watch him jump, and see what happened then? Would he sneak up onto the roof, tackle him down before he could step to the edge?

He could refuse to leave Bart’s at all. “Mrs. Hudson’s fine,” he’d say. “Or else you’d be worried, too.” He could tell Mycroft at Buckingham Palace to keep his damned mouth shut about his brother, if he wouldn’t mind (“…and by the way, keep this Irene Adler business to yourself; Sherlock has more important things to do, thanks,” he imagined he’d say). The night of his kidnapping, he could take his gun with him on his way out to Sarah’s and wait around the corner and shoot Moriarty’s men, and then Moriarty himself. Or the day before, he could tell Sherlock: “A guy called Jim is about to come in here and sneak you his number. Once he leaves, find him and kill him.”

Sherlock wouldn’t do that, of course. John would have to do it himself.

But then, without his being kidnapped and decked out in semtex, he would not have had the hours that followed that night.

Sherlock had collapsed onto the sofa, clearly in deep thought, and so John retired to his armchair, simultaneously exhausted and far too wired from the night’s events to fall asleep. His phone buzzed: a text from Sarah. “john, what happened?” it read. Seven missed calls. Thirteen texts to the same tune as this one. He tilted his head back, pondering whether he ought to say, “Sorry, was busy being a ventriloquist dummy and an explosive at the same time for someone even more insane than Sherlock, tell you about it later,” or just leave it at, “Oh, weren’t we meeting tomorrow night?” The second was certainly easier to type. He tilted his head and licked his lips, puzzling out the politest way to say it.

“Give that here,” Sherlock said, extending one arm, eyes closed as he laid back.

“It’s just Sarah.”

“Exactly.” His fingers twitched. “John. Your phone. Now.”

John crossed the room on legs that still quivered slightly beneath him. He was too tired to argue with Sherlock, anyway. “What for?” he asked as Sherlock’s long fingers curled around it.

“You are clearly shaken, and understandably so. Ideally, we should then minimize sudden movements and noises— _including_ those from your mobile.”

John rolled his eyes. “And yours?” Sherlock’s phone would naturally be an exception to the rule.

Sherlock removed it and Moriarty’s pink mobile from his pockets, and made a show of switching them both to mute before stacking them on top of John’s and stuffing them deep beneath the sofa cushions.

“So you’re not at all affected by this, then?” John considered taking a seat on the table rather than risk a trip back to his own chair.

“John, you—”

“Right, who am I kidding—” he bent his knees to sit on the table, and Sherlock opened his mouth in protest to the words, “—of course you are. I get it. I know. I saw.” The other man’s mouth clicked shut. “But is it really necessary to keep me from telling Sarah I’m fine? I think I can manage a quiet little ‘beep,’ Sherlock.”

“No, not necessary,” Sherlock agreed. “And still you gave your phone to me.”

“Yeah—well...well. Usually you have a reason.”

“I can see this will soon be going in circles,” Sherlock waved him off, hand swinging limply around his wrist. “Kindly shut up. I need to think.”

“About what—Moriarty? Leave it, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s eyes finally slid open, and his nostrils flared as he bit out, “Doesn’t deciphering his next move strike you as the most important thing right now, John? He could hurt y—he could do something incredibly…destructive.”

Of course, John couldn’t have known _what_ , then. “And he won’t be doing it tonight.” Maybe he should’ve let Sherlock think. He could have solved the problem before it started, realized what a threat Moriarty was, nipped it in the bud.

“So what do you propose, then, as a more worthy use of my time?”

John could have said a million things. He could have said something meaningful. “I think it would be of therapeutic value for you to insult a spy movie or two.”

“Preferably one you’re fond of, for the additional therapeutic value of watching you try to defend it.”

“Of course.” He stood, bracing himself against the arm of the sofa as he did so.

Sherlock’s gaze slid to John’s hand, mere inches from Sherlock’s face. “John.”

“Hm?”

“I recall reading somewhere that physical proximity to a familiar human being can also be of assistance in recovery from trauma.” Sherlock fidgeted as he said it. He sat up and edged toward the middle of the sofa to make room. “I’ve been meaning to test its applicability to…”

“Yeah, yeah, budge up,” John collapsed into the empty space.

“John?”

John glanced over for a moment in response, before returning his attention to selecting a film.

“I wanted to…say…”

John wished that he’d kept his mouth shut to hear how Sherlock’s statement had ended. With “thank you,” he postulated, but he also wondered if it could have been something—anything—else. Instead, though, he’d said, “I know,” with a wry smile and, “You think James Bond is a complete idiot.”

Sherlock smiled back, reaching over John for the remote. He spent the rest of the night leaning back against a pile of pillows, his legs forming a bridge over John’s lap and his feet digging into the gap between the sofa arm and John’s right thigh. Whatever it was that Sherlock had meant to say, it never came up again.

Thankfully, before he could torture himself over it any further, John arrived back at the rubbish dump. “All right,” he muttered to himself, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder as he climbed out of the taxi. He would—charge the machine, if that’s what his phone was doing when he plugged it in—and—give it a try. Maybe the thing would totter around like a tricycle and make funny noises. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe he’d wake up in A&E, or maybe he wouldn’t wake up at all. Of course, what he hoped—what he really hoped—was that it worked exactly as it was intended to. If that was the case—if that was the case, he’d have a whole new set of questions to ask, to answer. He would just have to charge it up, and if it worked—

If it worked, he would fire up the machine and go back.

He would save Sherlock.


	2. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you truly do not intend to travel anywhere but in the past, what was the purpose behind attempting to use the machine in the first place?”
> 
> “I’m sure I must’ve said it when I talked to you before,” John said, and amended, “later,” before changing his mind back to, “before.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [Morwen_Eledhwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) and Lani. This story wouldn’t be the same without your help.
> 
> I made a sort of fake book cover type thing for this for fun (I have no idea what I’m doing). You can view it here if you’d like. 
> 
> Again, please do feel free to inform me of any errors, particularly of the "you clearly have no clue about British culture" sort.

When John’s laptop finally died, he’d managed to work the dim blue glow of the display up to reading 54.7%. In the meantime, a number of other lights had blinked on—now the entire panel was faintly lit, and John was beginning to wonder whether he’d be able to operate the thing at all. 

He’d noticed, as well, that one differently colored key had lit as the meter passed half of whatever it was measuring. Power? John could definitely, at least, decipher its purpose: it read “ENGAGE.” So that button was lit—did that mean that he could run the machine? His phone had been mostly charged back up with the last of the power from his laptop. It read 5:39 AM. Soon enough, someone—a worker—would arrive here, and ask him what the hell he was doing, and maybe have him thrown out, because—well, he _had_ leapt over the fence to get here. And they’d get to wondering what in god’s name this was, and have a go at it, and the stupid thing would disappear or—break—or—

John had considered, when he had first found the means of charging the machine, transporting it elsewhere to finish charging—but he couldn’t find any way to drive it. It did have wheels—but small ones, perhaps just so it could be moved about within Andrew’s work space. He sincerely doubted that anything less than a tow truck could remove it from here. If John had been cleverer, he thought, perhaps the idea would have occurred to him at the outset, but he’d had no way of knowing how far his laptop’s battery would go toward charging it, and hadn’t wanted to deal with the inevitable questions at the time. Bringing a strange project _to_ a rubbish dump as Brian had done was one thing; having it towed out in the middle of the night was quite another. And now, it was far too late. 

It was possible that if he just left, he could come back in the usual way later, during normal hours, with another charge on his laptop. But would somebody find it in the meantime? Surely he could hide it. If he tried to use it and it didn’t go as expected—god—would it explode? Or if he used it, with someone else around to see him, and it did go as expected—would they be waiting for him when he came back? Carry him off to be interrogated by the government? Bloody hell, and it’d be Mycroft, too, with his luck, doing the questioning, and he’d have to explain all of this to _him_. “Oh, remember how it’s your fault your brother offed himself last year? Well, I just thought you’d like to know that I’ve gone absolutely mental and traveled through time to try to save him.” Yes, that would go over well.

But could he just leave with it in this state? It was beginning to look like he didn’t have much choice. He could wait until tomorrow night—he could likely hide it. Nobody would be looking for it. It seemed an awful lot to risk, though. “Come on, sodding machine, can’t you at least have come with instructions? He’d looked it over once, though it’d been darker at the time, and raining. One of the displays listed two sets of numbers. One was obviously today’s date—the time changed with that on his phone. The other, then, it had to be the destination, didn’t it? Right now it read the sixth of May, 1989. He could change that, right? There were some arrow keys nearby—ah. They’d been almost impossible to make out in the rain, but seemed straightforward enough now. Cautiously, John thumbed the down arrow beneath the year, and the display changed to 1988. All right—simple enough. Did it have a limit? More boldly, John tapped the key several more times—87, 86, 85, 84…by the time the date read 1960, the button reading “ENGAGE” dimmed. John moved the date up—1961. It lit again. So—so what was a reasonable deduction, then, from this evidence? It seemed the thing had enough juice in it to get back so far, but no more. Well—that was pretty far, wasn’t it? He didn’t have any reason to go to 1961. He’d pick something much more recent, to see if it worked; then he’d have plenty of power left to get back straight away if something went wrong. Well, if what all the movies said was true—and what more did he have to go on?—he should avoid seeing himself. Fine; he could choose a year he was in Afghanistan. Somewhere around 2008 would suit. He’d just change the year, then.

He’d be fine. This would be fine. This was reasonable. He’d made a plausible conclusion based on something he’d seen with his own eyes. Just because it was strange didn’t mean it wasn’t true—god, no. It was 5:48. He should get going. Shouldn’t he? If he was going to go—he was all ready, wasn’t he? He didn’t need anything. He had his phone, in case—well, in case. Did he need a plan? Maybe—but—he could hardly plan for something like this, could he? He’d figure it out. He usually did. And if this really was a time machine, didn’t he have all the time in the world? If it wasn’t, and it did something completely different, well, he might not have to figure it out. Someone would sort him out at hospital, or some such.

Right—and it would be getting brighter out before he knew it, and the streets would get busy, and who knew what this thing would do—so—better to do it now. No coming back later to find it gone, no being seen and taken away to be questioned by Mycroft.

John hoisted himself into the seat. So far, so good—it was comfortable enough, if soggy. He glanced over the array of keys and buttons, and changed the destination year to 2008. If there was a way to change the location, he wasn’t sure how to go about it—there were other numbers listed that appeared to be coordinates, but he couldn’t be sure of their reference point. What was set right now would have to do. Wherever he ended up, it probably wouldn’t be the most ridiculous place he’d been.

Well, that was about it, right? Here he was—in the seat, all secured with a belt of some sort. He had his phone—his jacket would likely be too warm for May, but he wasn’t about to leave it here. His laptop was back in its bag and slung over his shoulder. His gun—he had that, too. Now would be just about the right time for Sherlock to come rushing round the corner, shouting for him to stop, because he was an idiot and had no idea what he was doing and didn’t he notice that one crucial detail that proved that this machine was really just a deluxe golf buggy?

No? No Sherlock? All right.

Maybe there would be one in just a moment, though.

John sucked in a deep breath, raised one very still hand to the console, and pressed engage.

 

***

 

If there was a trip to remember, John didn’t remember it.

He remembered snapping into consciousness because his lungs were suddenly very empty and his limbs were suddenly very cold and he couldn’t hold his head still. When he moved, his vertebrae cracked—had he been asleep for very long? It was—what was it? Dark—really quite dark. He must’ve wound up in a building of some sort. 

Right: but he _could_ see, he determined, lifting an arm (good) and waving it in front of his face. He could track its movement at least reasonably well, given the darkness—he was dizzy, but not enough to believe he’d sustained any major injuries. His other arm lifted: also good. Breathing: labored, but getting better. There was a burning in his lungs, but more like he’d held his breath too long and then had it squeezed out of him. So why was he cold? The room wasn’t cold. Why was he shaking? Ah—wait—he was shaking, but he wasn’t cold. He pinched his skin on the back of his hand and watched it sink back slowly. Dehydration: not good. He held his arm up to the dim glow of the machine’s console for a better view and pinched it again. Oh. Definitely not good. Not awful—moderate at worst—but he’d have to do something about it sooner than later. Well then, first thing: water. And bring some with him next time. Could he do that? Maybe not. Might be a bad idea.

John stumbled out of his seat and leaned against the machine to regain his footing, squinting into the dark to see if he couldn’t discern…well, anything, really; but mostly he was hoping for a way out, or some way of telling where he was. (Or _when_ he was, he thought, and couldn’t suppress a mad giggle, because it _was_ a crazy idea. Or was the giggling due to the physical effects of traveling? He wasn’t exactly on top form.) Obviously he’d moved, unless four years ago there was a building here instead of a rubbish dump; that gave him something to work with as far as the coordinates went, once he could identify this location.

As he trudged forward to a slit of light that seemed to promise a door, John found his head reeling; maybe it was the dark, and definitely part of it was the dehydration, but he was having an awfully difficult time focusing his vision on anything. 

_Keep your eyes fixed on me_ , he thought of Sherlock saying, and abruptly felt both much more lucid and much less sane. The door it was. Sherlock would probably have told him by now that that wasn’t a door, it was a something-else, and obviously the real door was in the ceiling, or obviously there was no real door, because this was a cave. But it wasn’t a cave—the walls were brick. And it _was_ a door, and John left through it.

Ah. A house of some sort? It had seemed much bigger, but John supposed it was dark enough that he’d had no way of telling. And there: a street. He recognized that street. He wasn’t so far away from the Criterion café, in fact. So, London: good. All right. Good start. Maybe he’d get some water at the Criterion, then, since it was near.

It was sunny—dizzyingly so—and John’s lungs still felt as if they needed some time to work their way back up to breathing at full capacity. It seemed to be affecting his vision, and he almost fell over a young woman exiting the shop he was now passing. John tried to apologize, but found his mouth rather peanut-buttery. Bring jam to go with it next time, he thought, and then grinned a little, because it was a clever thought, and then paused, because surely all that machine had done was make him go mental and maybe take him a few miles down the road. At least his head was keeping still now; that was nice. He could sort of…look around. Would Sherlock be here? He could be here. This wasn’t an unreasonable place for Sherlock to be. John could just walk up and down all the streets in London and probably eventually he would run into Sherlock, and that’s how he’d know he’d made it to the past, yes. Because he had tried it a bit already, systematically working his way through London from Baker Street outwards, and had had no luck so far; so if he found Sherlock, it had to be the past, right? He supposed he could also tell if Sherlock looked younger. Would Sherlock look younger? He wasn’t sure—2008 was only a couple years before they met. Did Sherlock age? Maybe he would look exactly the same. Probably so. Probably scrawnier. This would be before Sherlock had someone around to bribe him to eat toast in the morning, because it was before Sherlock lived with the kind of nutter who would just let him keep a head in the fridge, wasn’t it? That kind of nutter was John. John had used body parts in the fridge to force Sherlock to eat more times than any normal person would care to hear about.

“I’ll throw him away, you watch,” John had said on one such occasion, and reached into the refrigerator for the head.

“No. No!” 

And John had stared pointedly at the jam and toast in front of Sherlock.

“John. Surely you wouldn’t waste such a—I can’t just—”

“Eat, or I bin him.” He’d even grabbed the thing by the hair and made to hoist it off its plate. Sherlock shoveled the toast into his mouth and looked to John, who narrowed his eyes as if daring Sherlock not to swallow it. John lifted his arm a little, and the neck unstuck from the plate with a _ssschluck_. Sherlock gulped his toast down and, for good measure, wolfed down John’s breakfast as well. John lowered his arm again, replacing the head. “Looks like Terry lives to see another day,” he said dryly, turning to the fridge and closing it. He heard a snort from behind him and turned around to see Sherlock grinning.

Yes, so, he would be on the lookout for a skinnier Sherlock—if that was possible. He would look out for—for—he shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. It was difficult to look for much of anything this state. How many shops and buildings had he passed in his daze? When he twisted around to look back, he could only vaguely recall them: the place with the orange sign, the store with the wide windows in front. But while he was looking over his shoulder, he noticed something else—a sleek black car smoothly rolling up behind him. It stopped on the side of the street just a few paces ahead of where he was.

It took John two lethargic blinks before he made the decision to stride to the door and climb inside, almost collapsing to the seat as he shut the door. Sitting felt…nice. Yes. He could sit for a while. This was good. 

“Ah,” spoke a voice from the front passenger seat—a familiar one. “John. You must be feeling…disoriented.”

At his impulse and subsequent inability to respond, John thought for one panicked, incredulous moment that the time travel, if that’s what it was, has stolen his voice, sucked it out of his throat as he was sucked backward. He licked his lips several times and tested how audibly he could exhale, willing it to sound like some sort of a sigh. “M…Mycroft?” he finally managed.

“Odd, how you simply entered the vehicle without question, presumably upon concluding that it was mine. Is this to be the usual way of things, John Watson?”

John did sigh, this time, head thudding back against the plush car seat. He pressed out a high-pitched giggle, an unnerving sound jerked from his body before it could fully form. The rest of the ride—a short one, perhaps five minutes—was filled with silence, although from what John could hear Mycroft seemed to be working to clear his throat. The car glided to a stop outside a building John definitely knew—the Diogenes Club. As he exited the vehicle and his gaze connected with Mycroft’s, John began chortling again, and Mycroft lifted an eyebrow.

“Last time we met you were rather less,” Mycroft’s mouth twisted up into what looked like a smile but most definitely was not, “unhinged.”

“So we’ve met before, have we?” At least he could speak now.

“Well, you seem to know me—from later, yes, I know,” he added, when John opened his mouth. “You met me not long after you met my brother. I spoke with you about it some years ago. It was you, in fact, who suggested I pick you up today. You said that you would recognize this vehicle as mine.”

“Ah,” was all John could think to say, squinting a bit in the hopes that doing so would work away the haze lingering around his mind and senses. “So it worked, then, did it? I’m…what year is it?”

“John, you have passed three different postings of today’s date since your arrival here.”

“Have I? You were watching, I suppose?”

“Naturally. I was waiting for the appropriate moment to retrieve you from the street. I suppose you were too busy searching for my brother to notice much else.”

John opened his mouth, clicked it shut, and then grimaced. “So then, have you always made it your business to know too much about everyone, or have I just had the bad luck of running into you after you realized what spectacular fun it is to stalk people on the CCTV?”

“A question that you find yourself uniquely capable of answering empirically,” was all Mycroft said, glancing down at his watch. “Now, let us move indoors and discuss this someplace more comfortable.”

 

***

 

What was comfortable for Mycroft was significantly less so for John; he could not completely shoo away memories of Mycroft peeling away layers to reveal the horror of what he’d done, of what harm he’d caused Sherlock by telling Moriarty too much, of what he was about to cause Sherlock to do, as he and John sat in this same room. A spark flashed in John’s mind: He could go forward, and go to Buckingham Palace instead of his younger, luckier self. Sherlock would be ready to storm off and John would be right there beside him, and tell Mycroft to bugger off, and tell Sherlock to leave with him—let Mycroft have the sheet; John’ll give Sherlock his coat to cover up with—because this was _not_ worth their time.

Then he could go kill Moriarty, who’d be bang out of luck anyway without Mycroft to give him all that information about Sherlock. 

Simple as that.

“You seem deep in thought,” Mycroft finally spoke. “Might I inquire as to the topic of your concerns?”

“Nothing you’d understand,” John said, and he couldn’t entirely keep from snapping it. He couldn’t tell Mycroft about any of this, could he? Or had he already?

“You’d be surprised.” Mycroft’s voice was as smooth and unperturbed as his features. “I know more than you seem to think I do.”

“As usual, I see. What is it that you want, exactly?” 

Mycroft finally took a seat, motioning for John to do the same. Reluctantly, John lowered himself into the chair, noting for the first time and with only passing surprise that he had left his cane back at the rubbish dump—in 2012, just before he leapt up to chase after Sherlock.

“I rather thought that you would be in need of a bit of assistance.” As Mycroft used one hand to fetch a small book from his pocket—ah, that looked like the one he’d had the first time he’d forced John to meet him, from which he’d read the address of the flat and John’s therapist’s comments—with the other hand he motioned passively toward a glass John hadn’t noticed on the table between them. Oh: water. Lovely. And an entire pitcher full of it farther down the table. “You have been kind enough—or, shall I say, you _will_ be kind enough—to leave yourself a few pieces of advice, John.”

God. Was he really hearing this? He was obviously asleep. This was much different from his regular Baker Street nightmares, however. Well—there was time yet for Sherlock to appear and do something awful and break—

“First,” Mycroft seemed to be reading from the notebook, “you wished for me to inform you that you have, in fact, traveled through time using that odd device. I was told that you are still quite certain you are asleep. This is not the case.”

“Well, thanks for that.” He couldn’t tell if he was speaking sarcastically or not. He gulped down half a glass of water.

“Yes, you can see Sherlock,” Mycroft continued, apparently reading from a list. “No, you cannot communicate with him or be seen by him in any way.”

“This is what I said?” It was equally likely that Mycroft was making it up, perhaps under the impression that it would be better for Sherlock not to see John until he was meant to. Well, maybe it was. Perhaps if Sherlock glimpsed John too early, the whole of time and space would unravel, or they would never meet, or—John very suddenly wished that he had taken notes during every bad sci-fi film he’d subjected Sherlock to. How did this work? Why could he talk to Mycroft, and not Sherlock? Could he really not even make eye contact with him?

“Don’t be stupid,” he imagined Sherlock-over-his-shoulder saying, although even he wasn’t sure if the words were directed to himself or Mycroft. Mycroft, John hoped.

“Yes,” Mycroft answered. “That is what you told me some five years ago, which I assume will be your next stop. Incidentally,” Mycroft flipped through the pages of his planner, and pulled out one small, folded sheet. He stood up for long enough to hand it over to John, and resumed his position in the chair. “These are the coordinates at which you’ll want to land henceforth. You told me you can input a spatial destination into the machine, and that this area would be safe. It is, I feel I must say, a part of our Mummy’s property—well, her property here in London.” John raised his eyebrows, tucking the sheet away into a pocket on his laptop case, and Mycroft seemed to sense the oncoming question as John opened his mouth. Mycroft held up a hand. “Dr. Watson, if you value your life, you will not disturb her in any way. If you step on a violet in her garden, replace it.” He cleared his throat. “I am not entirely certain she is aware you are using the space. Or rather: She _must_ know, but as she has never mentioned it to me, she must not wish to be involved.”

“Christ,” was all John could think to say, and he took another healthy gulp of water. The Holmes family. Christ. But— “You do know what happened to Sherlock, don’t you? In the future?”

“You told me.”

“You mean I’ll tell you.”

“Correct.”

“Five years ago.”

“Yes.”

“So you know what I said, but I don’t.”

“Are you quite finished?” John nodded, although he was severely tempted to carry on just to see how long it would take to drive Mycroft up the wall. “Good.” Mycroft rearranged himself on the chair, sitting even more imperiously, if that was possible. “Now that I’ve had some time to consider the matter, I have a few questions for you.”

“Okay, let’s hear it, then.” And he _really_ couldn’t speak to Sherlock? He, John, had said it, if Mycroft wasn’t lying. (Which itself required rather a leap of faith to believe.) What did know later, once he was in the past, that he didn’t know now? John could barely even wring the question through his brain well enough to make sense of it, let alone answer it. But all that happened after this, right? So he would find out. He’d just find out, just like everything else, if he waited. It wasn’t unlike following Sherlock on a case. He was following Sherlock, wasn’t he? In a way.

“Do you plan to travel to the future? You mentioned nothing of it last we spoke.”

“Well, I’m not gathering information for you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The corners of Mycroft’s mouth folded down; he’d been expecting that answer, maybe, but was displeased nonetheless. “Very well. But all the same, do you intend to go?”

“I don’t know.” It was rather too much to consider. “I don’t think so.”

Mycroft clearly found either the statement or the ease with which the answer came to John unbelievable, based on the furrow of his brow. “Why not?”

“Nothing there,” John shrugged. “Anyway, would you really want to know how you’re going to…I dunno, die?” Mycroft opened his mouth, but John continued, “I don’t. I don’t want to see that coming. I doubt there’s anything in the future that I wouldn’t rather find out the usual way. This is odd enough as it is, isn’t it?” Not that he regretted it—no, especially not now that he was _actually_ in the past, could _actually_ see Sherlock.

Mycroft still appeared to be displeased—no, puzzled. He was confused. “Ah. That eliminates the remainder of my questions, then.” He steepled his fingers and settled his chin atop them. “But I do have one other, in that case. If you truly do not intend to travel anywhere but in the past, what was the purpose behind attempting to use the machine in the first place?”

“I’m sure I must’ve said it when I talked to you before,” John said, and amended, “later,” before changing his mind back to, “before.”

“Indeed you did. You said you wish to prevent Sherlock’s death.”

“Yeah.”

“So you came to this time, rather than, say, the time just before his death because…”

“Because I knew I wouldn’t be about. I’m in Afghanistan right now.”

“Ah. Naturally.”

“I don’t know how any of this works, so I thought…best be safe. Do you suppose I’ll go mad if I see myself? I mean if me from earlier, before this time travel business, sees me right now. Did I say anything about that?”

“No. I imagine it would be rather disconcerting, however, and so avoiding it was a prudent decision.”

“And—obviously I’m not going to _just_ save Sherlock,” John said, and it surprised him, a little.

“Oh?”

“Well, of course I must go back and tell you what to tell me right now, mustn’t I? So there’s at least that.”

“John, I must recommend you minimize contact with Sherlock or time in his proximity while you’re here—in what you see as the past,” Mycroft was suddenly defensive. “Neither you nor I have any idea…”

“I’m going to see him, Mycroft.”

“Of that I have no doubt. I know you have.”

“You don’t understand. He’s…Christ, Mycroft, Sherlock is _dead_. I haven’t…I can’t just…”

Mycroft leaned back in his chair, steepled hands following him. “This really _is_ all about my brother, then.”

“Well—yeah.” It sounded a bit stupid, didn’t it? No, of course it didn’t. John really didn’t care to reflect on anything from his own past—not when there was something so much more important to do. And he couldn’t—it would be ridiculous to—try to do something _big_ , wouldn’t it? Things didn’t work that way. He couldn’t travel backwards and, oh, say, kill Hitler—it would probably do something impossible, like keep him from being born somehow. He wasn’t—he wasn’t the sort of chap to just—meddle in that kind of thing. This wasn’t about that. And he…well, up until…up until last June, he’d been pretty happy with his life, or with the past year and a half of it. This was it, it really was. He just wanted to—see Sherlock. And save him. That was a noble enough cause, wasn’t it? It was noble enough. Sherlock was important. Sherlock was important to everybody. Sherlock couldn’t just _die_. It was a noble cause. 

Mycroft leaned in a bit, lowered his voice. “Dr. Watson, right now my brother is—” he paused. Considering his words carefully, as usual, John figured. “Well. You seem a reasonable enough person, a few notable flaws aside.” John’s lips tightened at that one. “So certainly, somehow—” another pause. This must be a difficult one, John thought: probably to do with _feelings_. “—he comes out of all of this—intact?”

John’s blood was suddenly hot in his veins, dizzying, urging his jaw upward and his nostrils wider, and he gripped the chair arms with strangling force. “You mean besides the leaping off a building to his—? Yeah, it’s all just brilliant, Mycroft. _Christ_.” He lowered his head into one hand, releasing it from the chair to massage his temples. His face was uncomfortably warm and he could not discern if it was the anger, the dehydration, or the stinging behind his eyes that was the primary cause. They sat there in silence for painful seconds, John gasping back choppy breaths that escaped from his lungs involuntarily.

Mycroft seemed to be chewing past something. “You do, then—you _care_ about him.” The word sounded like a curse from Mycroft’s tongue, but the way his voice lowered in pitch and volume and his hands withdrew to his sides as he leaned forward spoke of something else. His intake of breath was slow, as if he was using it for several more moments to gather his thoughts, or to decide not to speak at all—but he continued: “For that reason alone you are, as I hope Sherlock has told you in at least some way, extraordinary among men.”

John stood abruptly, the heavy chair behind him lurching several inches back as he did so. “Caring for Sherlock doesn’t make me extraordinary, Mycroft,” he snapped, and turned and marched to the door. John paused in the frame, and added, still facing out toward the hallway, “It makes everyone who doesn’t a bloody fool.”

And he left.

 

***

 

John had no doubt that cameras were following him as he left the Diogenes Club and as he strode with purpose toward where he’d come from. He’d see if he couldn’t plug the machine to charge, just to be sure he could get to wherever he was going to next—and back, if something went horribly wrong. And while he let it charge, he’d devise a plan to find Sherlock here, and—well, and at least _see_ him, and maybe he’d find out if Mycroft was lying when he’d told John that he wouldn’t be able to communicate with Sherlock. Surely a passing glance couldn’t hurt?

But then—what if it did? What if Sherlock seeing him changed everything? Sherlock would meet him at St. Bart’s, and recognize him, and would he conclude that John was recently returned from Afghanistan if he’d also seen John in London while he was supposed to be abroad? What then? Would Sherlock, believing him to be simply a doctor, and not an army doctor, fail to consider inviting him to the crime scene with the pink lady? Could John ask to go instead? He pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing a little. John knew that he was a smart man—that he looked like a fool next to Sherlock meant nothing when it came to comparing himself against others—but _this_ was too much. It felt too much like when Ella had insisted he start a blog, and he’d stared at the page, completely lost for both what to write and how to go about posting it.

So maybe it would be best if Sherlock didn’t see him. He could wait until he found Sherlock, and play it by ear. That was usually best. John worked well under pressure. He’d be fine. John was, in fact, giddy with the idea of catching a glimpse of his best friend, to replace that most recent image he had of Sherlock with a pleasanter one. It was a bit peaceful, thinking that he could think up a way to save Sherlock this afternoon, travel to whenever he needed to to get the job done, and after he did that, he could just…find himself, and explain to himself why he was there—it was weird, yeah, but he, John-from-the-past, would be used enough to strange things by then from being Sherlock’s flatmate, right?—and then he’d catch up with himself, wouldn’t he? Was that how it worked? One day, he and himself and Sherlock would be lounging around the flat, maybe asleep on the sofa after a movie, and it would pass 5:50 AM on the day he left from, and the other him would just…pop away, never to be seen again. He’d say, “I told you,” to Sherlock, and Sherlock would grin, because he would find it very interesting. Sherlock would understand. John would have hunted Moriarty down years before, and Sherlock would have been upset, but something else would have distracted him eventually. And one day, maybe in June, on the day Sherlock would’ve jumped, John would explain. “You know that Moriarty guy? Do you want to know why I killed him? Have you figured it out? I came from the future, you know, a different future, where I didn’t kill him, and can you deduce what he did? He made you look like a fake, Sherlock, and you jumped off of the roof of St. Bart’s after you made a crap phone call to me full of lies and I never knew why you jumped. So I had to come back. I had to come back and save you. Aren’t you glad? Don’t worry. Moriarty wasn’t such great fun as you thought he was, Sherlock. He tried to kill me, too, did you know? He killed lots of people. The world is better without him. You’re better without him. We both are.” And Sherlock would understand, eventually, because John was doing the logical thing. It made sense.

“Thank you, John,” Sherlock would say. And he would lean forward, features sober and sharp and lucid, and say, “John, I…” and John would keep his mouth shut and wait this time, and listen to what Sherlock had to say, and everything would be okay.

 

***

 

For all the darkness of the building when John had woken up in it, he’d half expected to find that it no longer had power, but when he popped the small compartment on the time machine open and plugged it into the wall, the percentage displayed began increasing by small increments. So it would take a while—well, of course; just as it had before. He found a light switch by the glow of his mobile and upon flipping it, found that he appeared to be in someone’s house. Well—maybe not someone’s house anymore—it seemed to be abandoned. Things still sat out on the tables, but coated in layers and sheets of dust. Sherlock, of course, would know by the thickness and type how long the place had been abandoned. At least five or ten years, John thought. There was probably something more he could glean from his surroundings if he looked for a bit longer that Sherlock could detect in half a second flat—why the lights still worked, if no one lived here, for one. _Why_ no one lived here, for another. John considered for one moment finding Sherlock and bringing him back to ask—but he couldn’t do that, could he? No, that wouldn’t do. 

But he _could_ , at least, _see_ Sherlock. 

The machine would be a while charging; it was unlikely to be found here now if no one had touched the place in years. Well, then—he’d head out and have a look about. He hadn’t the slightest idea where to start—Scotland Yard? Was Sherlock working with them by now? Why hadn’t he ever asked where Sherlock had lived _before_ 221B? Sighing, John set off. He’d figure it out.

 

***

 

As it happened, there wasn’t much _to_ be figured out.

John had made it a couple of miles and was considering simply getting a taxi to Scotland Yard, since that seemed the most likely place so far—unless he started milling about crime scenes in the hopes that Sherlock would show up—when passed the open door of a Chinese restaurant and heard one very distinctive voice bark, “ _No_ , Lestrade! I—” John paused, ducked into the restaurant. There—that was the table from which the—

As John tried stepping toward the source of the sound, he was bumped by a waiter and almost tripped over a chair. Was this what he meant—it wasn’t that he _oughtn’t_ speak to Sherlock, but that he physically wouldn’t be able to? No, certainly that was a coincidence. But as John made for the table from which he’d heard Sherlock’s voice once more, another waiter swept over. “Table for one?”

“Y…yeah.” Well, bollocks.

But the waiter led him the way he’d been hoping for anyway. John craned his neck for a view of Sherlock past the other patrons and the decorative trees, and was eventually rewarded with a glimpse—god, it was—it was— _god_. Right there. Sherlock. John’s stomach flipped and based on the way his chest burned as it did, his stomach must have also sloshed a bit of acid up his esophagus in the process. He mouthed it: Sherlock, Sherlock. Christ. Here. Alive. Sherlock. And still, they were coming closer—and—was this—

John was seated with his back to Sherlock. 

They were so _close_. If he stood up too quickly, his chair would topple back into Sherlock’s. But that wouldn’t happen, would it—because it would be against—what, the rules? Were there rules? Whatever rules he had given himself, wherever he had gotten those. John debated saying his name: but no, he reminded himself—remember? Everything could get mucked up if he did this wrong.

“Not for the past two weeks,” Sherlock was speaking adamantly into his mobile. “And that’s not what we’re talking about, either.”

John silently glanced over his menu. If he spoke to the waiter, and Sherlock heard him, would Sherlock remember his voice? What would that do? At least he had money to pay for something. It was worth it, to see Sherlock, to hear him. 

“No, I mean the new one—no, the one that’s even stupider than the rest. Yes, him. No, I won’t. Do you want to find the killer or don’t you?”

John slid back as far as he could in his chair without drawing Sherlock’s attention to him, and leaned back and eyed his menu, apparently indecisive about soups. It was a good thing he’d leaned back, too; Sherlock’s voice dropped to a quiet hiss. Was he angry? “Did you not hear what he said to me, Lestrade? It was…” 

Oh. No. Not angry. 

“Not your—you do realize that I nearly—” Sherlock’s voice was unsteady, still quiet. “No, it’s not _just him_ —and you call yourself a detective? But they all—” John chanced a glance behind him, rotating his head just enough that he could see Sherlock’s shoulder out of the corner of his eye. It was rolled forward, and it shook slightly as Sherlock spoke. John snapped his gaze back to his menu before he was tempted to turn further. “Of course,” Sherlock finally said, and John heard the click of the phone being set on the table. 

He nearly jumped from his seat when the waiter, suddenly right beside him, asked, “What can I get you?”

“Uh,” John wondered if he ought to be disguising his voice. No, that would sound ridiculous. He should just speak normally. His voice was average, forgettable. “Just the hot and sour for now.” And the waiter nodded, and was gone. 

There. The universe hadn’t imploded. He was still alive, and Sherlock—well—best to check—John twisted around once more, to glance at Sherlock, just to be sure. As John could just begin to make him out in his peripheral vision, he took in a sharp breath and turned forward— _shit_ —because Sherlock had just been turning away from _him_.

Silence followed. John could hear the soft click of Sherlock texting madly—as always. Good, well—just a fluke. All right. Of course—that was ridiculous. Sherlock had probably just been about to tell John he was an idiot for ordering the hot and sour, but was distracted by a text from Lestrade or Mycroft. God—maybe Mycroft had seen John enter the restaurant, waited until just now to text Sherlock as a distraction, to make sure he didn’t look. John wasn’t sure if he was ready to think that he was being watched so closely, but it possible—it was Mycroft.

When the soup came, John sputtered the first slurp out, and almost wished Sherlock had advised him against it. But—he was paying for it, and hungry, and what else was there to do? He groaned a little. Ah well—he’d eaten far worse.

But what had that phone conversation been about? Sherlock had been—still was—upset, John was fairly certain. He’d never seen him in such a state…well, the once, yes, just before he—but—this couldn’t be related, could it, to Sherlock’s…to Sherlock jumping? Whatever reason Sherlock had leapt, it can’t have been this—this was more than a year and a half before John met Sherlock. A year and a half—well—John still had nightmares about things from more than three years ago, didn’t he? But he was Sherlock’s flatmate; he saw everything about Sherlock. John saw all of his moods. He would remember seeing him like this. Well, John couldn’t _see_ him, but Sherlock’s voice had been so _much_ like just before he had jumped that… 

Sherlock’s phone rang again. “No, _brother dear_ ,” he snapped, much sooner than the caller could have so much as spoken a word, “I have _not_.”

Mycroft? John was surprised Sherlock had answered it at all. 

“Well, turn them back; your information was _wrong_. No, I am seeing somebody right now. Yes, a client, obviously.”

Was he? No, of course he wasn’t; there was no one else there. Maybe the client already had already been by, or they hadn’t shown up yet. Or, equally likely, Sherlock had (understandably) had it with Mycroft’s nosing around, and had ducked into a noisy restaurant to have a private conversation with Lestrade (which, John thought, had wound up being markedly _less_ private than Sherlock had probably intended, but of course Sherlock had no way of knowing that the man back-to-back with him took particular interest in anything other than how unsatisfying his hot and sour was). 

“Then tell Lestrade to piss off. He’s just as much an idiot as anyone.”

John winced as he took another sip of his hot and sour. How was this place still in business? He’d bet anything that Sherlock hadn’t ordered a single thing, and considered marching up to the counter to quietly order something (something else, not this) to be delivered to him—but it would be a waste, of course. And anyway, Sherlock would probably be gone within the next two minutes. 

Sherlock’s phone seemed to hit the table with a loud smack, as if it had been purposefully slammed down. Now this—volatile Sherlock, temper-tantrum Sherlock, John could recognize, could handle—to the extent that anyone could, anyway. He tilted his head back and to the side just enough to glimpse Sherlock again, and Sherlock’s head was buried in his hands, fingers twined through curls and gripping at his scalp. God, he needed to—to say _something_. Sherlock was pouting, yes, which was normal, but still so _upset_ , which was surely not something that usually happened? And he was still shaking slightly, and his breathing was heavy; John fought the compulsion to reach around and grab Sherlock’s wrist to measure his heart rate, to pull the torch from his jacket pocket and shine it in Sherlock’s eyes, to make a suggestion on reducing headaches, to pinch his knuckles, to lay the back of his hand to Sherlock’s forehead, to, strike all that, demand Sherlock’s address and find him a taxi home, have him step onto the scale to see how much more weight he needed to put on, tuck him in with water and ice on his head and give him paracetamol. John would take his systolic blood pressure for the time being, and go get a proper cuff later. He’d rest his fingers around Sherlock’s pulse; it would be strong, stronger than usual, quicker than usual; he’d count, he’d count a hundred at least. “Shh,” he’d say, because Sherlock would be babbling and whining and moaning, and John would take a damp cloth to the film of sweat on Sherlock’s forehead.

He’d never really taken care of Sherlock (short of bribing him to eat, patching him up now and again); the one time Sherlock had gotten well and truly sick, John had as well. On the first day, they had texted one another from their bedrooms (mostly John texting Sherlock, and receiving unhelpful, sarcastic replies); by the third, Sherlock was on the sofa, and John had given up on falling asleep in his chair and moved to the floor beside the sofa. That was when John discovered Sherlock’s tendency to, in his sleep, fling his foot over the edge of the sofa and onto the floor—or, in the case of that particular night, John’s shoulder. The first time, John had woken Sherlock up by making a point of throwing it back onto the sofa as obnoxiously as Sherlock had smacked his shoulder with it. “Sherlock,” he’d hissed, “that’s my left shoulder.” His bad shoulder.

The second time, John hadn’t woken Sherlock up; Sherlock’s foot had landed more softly, and rested there, toes curling and uncurling occasionally. “Sherlock,” he’d muttered, rolling his eyes, and left it. When he woke up, Sherlock had curled his leg slightly, and the foot was on his chest. John liked to think that Sherlock simply didn’t like the idea of John being up and about without having to wake him first, though Sherlock’s displeased groaning when John moved the foot and sat up spoke otherwise.

“Lay back down,” Sherlock had said. “Isn’t that what doctors are supposed to tell sick people do? Sleep? Go back to sleep. You’re a doctor; you should know this.”

John had sighed, and continued sitting up. “Can’t. Too…awake.”

“Oh,” Sherlock had mouthed, and then said, “Well, good, because I think I would like to lie here and play my violin a bit, while my stomach decides whether or not it feels like ridding itself of any remaining contents. I would hate for my noise to disturb you in this state, so it’s good you’re up.”

And John had nodded, and he lay back down, and drifted back to sleep to the sweeping of Sherlock’s bow.

But this time it was just Sherlock, just Sherlock inexplicably ill and upset. Ill? Oh: maybe not ill. Maybe something else. Drugs? Was that why everyone was calling him? Lestrade, Mycroft? 

“Shh,” he’d say against Sherlock’s grumbling, after taking him away from here and to a quiet, calm flat or—or wherever Sherlock lived. He’d fix him a cuppa, like he always did, and keep track of his temperature, and just to please Sherlock, he’d plot it along a timeline. Lots of data: temperature, heart rate, response time. Qualitative data, all held in John’s head: clammy skin, hot forehead, red eyes, slight tremor, messy curls, chapped lips. But more specific: Skin clammy like dead bodies weren’t; forehead hot, as if Sherlock had pushed his brain too hard and now it was overheating; red eyes, veins a sharp contrast with the stark grey-blue-green of the irises; tremor: everywhere, uncontrolled, like shivering; messy curls, damp with sweat, unruly as always, the same length as he last remembered, darkened by the wetness; chapped lips—slightly open for heavy breathing.

And John would feed him soup. It would be better than this hot and sour, to be sure. Of course, if he wasn’t actually ill, but rather—oh, but the soup wouldn’t hurt anyway. Sherlock would open his mouth, and John would think for one moment he was about to receive a well-deserved _thank you_ but it would be some snappish comment about how unnecessary any further care would be.

John wondered if Sherlock had the same phone number now as he’d had before. Probably. Wouldn’t it be interesting if he tried calling Sherlock? But best not. According to himself, later, he shouldn’t talk to Sherlock. Had he made an error before, and was now trying to fix it? Did time work that way? But Sherlock had _heard_ him; had, maybe, _looked_ at him. Christ, and he was in such a state: John heard no more clicking of keys, just Sherlock’s breathing, which itself was such a miracle. John closed his eyes, placing in the fore of his mind the blurred and painful image of Sherlock on the ground, bloodied, dead, in front of him, and listened to Sherlock behind him, breathing, and tried to memorize the sound alongside the sight. _I’m going to do that for you, Sherlock_ , John thought, _I’m going to make sure you keep breathing._

Could he really not talk to Sherlock? God. Because what? Sherlock would recognize him when they met, and it would change things, wouldn’t it? But if he didn’t talk to Sherlock, and Sherlock just heard John happen to talk…or if they had some completely normal conversation? John opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t conjure up anything that he could say, that wouldn’t—that wouldn’t cause Sherlock to just _know_ , everything, right away. John took a sip of his hot and sour in the hopes that it would help him clear his mind and throat. He coughed it down with difficulty: now it was poorly made _and_ cold.

“This restaurant started going downhill from the day it opened,” Sherlock spoke in low tones that made John shiver. It was like—it was _just like_ being there with Sherlock, like they were on a case, like—well, and he _was_ there with Sherlock; Sherlock was right here, alive. What was he— John licked his lips and tried to speak again, to ask for clarification, but the waiter had stepped back up to the table with a pitcher.

“More water?”

He subtly pinched his skin, squinting at it. “Yes, all right.” 

Sherlock spoke as soon as the waiter disappeared. “Do I know you?”

John pressed one hand to his mouth, working his fingers and his palm across his lips as it slid down his chin slowly. Was this supposed to be the moment he followed his own instructions—was this where he was supposed to do avoid speaking to Sherlock? Like on the sofa, god—just keep his mouth shut. Yes. Keep it shut. Still, he shook his head _no_ , because no, god, no, Sherlock can’t know him now, can’t know him yet, no, or else what will he travel home to?

“Ah,” came the whisper. 

_Keep quiet, John._ Let him speak, let him say...whatever else. It’s probably important. What if this is why he jumped? There was one thing that he didn’t get to just say to somebody, anybody, even a random stranger at a restaurant. Unlikely for Sherlock—but so much was. _You talked, John, that’s what you did, and so you told Mycroft to tell you not to so it wouldn’t go to pot again. What if you wouldn’t have interrupted him before? The Bond movies. He would have said what he had to, instead of you making that crack. You could have talked through it. He wouldn’t have jumped._

“I suppose it was some time ago. Fifteen years, perhaps; more than enough time to have forgotten a voice. For a few short words, even a matter of weeks is enough for deterioration of the memory for a listener not expecting to hear the voice again, unless the auditory memory is paired with a visual one. It serves as an occasionally valuable but frequently inexact tool for identification of a suspect.”

Fifteen years, was it? John wanted to tell him to go on, tell him more about memories of voices and the brilliant ways he’s used them to solve crimes. Would Sherlock remember his voice if he did? Certainly it would be more than a couple of weeks before they met again—it would be a couple of years. And certainly Sherlock wouldn’t be expecting to hear him again. He could…but no, it was less than two years; having a random man at a restaurant make conversation about crime scenes would be too memorable for someone with a memory like Sherlock’s.

Fifteen years…had Sherlock _actually_ heard him fifteen years ago? Had Sherlock been like this, a wreck, shouting at Lestrade, shaking, making low little noises in his throat? 

Sherlock seemed to have reverted to silence, and from what John could hear, was spinning the phone on the table. What was he waiting for? Another call? What, from Lestrade again, something else to upset Sherlock? Mycroft? Well, no, obviously Sherlock wouldn’t wait for a call from Mycroft. John heard a spasm of movement, and Sherlock’s phone skidding across the table, luckily not falling off. “Bloody hell,” Sherlock muttered, apparently to himself this time, and his voice quivered, tinged with desperation.

_What can I do?_ John wanted to ask, god, no, needed, _needed_ to ask. Sherlock, here, maybe at the bottom of a spiral downward, losing his grasp of _something_ ; Sherlock, alone, telling a stranger at a restaurant about a familiar voice and identifying criminals. John bowed his head down, running a hand through his hair. Sherlock, alone here, _alone_ , alone and for god knows how long he had been, alone for almost two more years. John almost turned around to grab him, grab Sherlock’s hands to steady them, whisper something, _it’s fine, it’s all fine_. If he could just take Sherlock back to his flat, or whatever, just make sure he was safe, just check his temperature, his pulse, his heart rate, check all his secret places for drugs, just watch and make sure—but he couldn’t do that, could he? 

Sherlock was hunched over the table; John could rub a hand over his back to comfort him, but no, none of that, either.

_Have you always been this alone? God, Sherlock, no, I hope not._

 _No, of course not, no, I’ll—I’ll watch, I’ll make sure. I won’t talk to you, but I can be there, Sherlock._ He could be there, John could be there; he _could_ , he was the only one who could—the only one besides those sodding fools who didn’t know what they were doing, and they blew their chance to hell. John was reminded of the bank, of Sebastian Wilkes, of his words about Sherlock, “We hated him,” and god, no, John could be there, he could be there and hope Sherlock could _know_ , somehow, in the way only Sherlock could, that there was something else besides jeering schoolboys, someone who didn’t hate him, someone who definitely didn’t hate him, and that would be enough to get him through. Would it be enough to keep him from jumping? Christ, he had to _try_. And if that wasn’t enough—well—there were other things, other ideas, and even if it was, he’d still be going after Moriarty. If it wasn’t enough, at least there was _somebody_ , at least Sherlock wasn’t _alone_.

Sherlock would scoff at the sentiment: alone. “Of course I’m alone,” he’d say, “I prefer it that way.”

But he didn’t, of course, and John knew. Every time before he went out, Sherlock would pull on his coat and watch John expectantly, and John would ask, “Where are you off to?”

And Sherlock would say, “Scotland Yard,” or “crime scene,” or, so very rarely, “to fetch us some Thai,” usually with, “and there’s someone on the way I need to visit,” lest John begin thinking that Sherlock actually occasionally got hungry, or, worse, would go so far as to be the one to get food for John when he wasn’t. And Sherlock would watch for any traces of John’s movement, eyes glittering, and John would pause for an extra moment, just to watch Sherlock begin to sulk off, before setting his laptop aside and swinging a jacket over his shoulders, and Sherlock would hear John’s feet and his back would straighten, and he’d sweep down the stairs and onto the street with the proud strut of a peacock with an audience.

Sherlock did _not_ prefer alone; and, John thought, certainly must not prefer _lonely_.

John knew, though, that if he stood to leave now, he would have to look at Sherlock, would have to sit across from him and reach across to pat him in the shoulder, and estimate his temperature, and take his pulse. So, no: he would wait. Time wasn’t going anywhere, was it? He would wait until Sherlock left. He could take his time with what was left of his hot (cold, and barely spicy) and sour (loosely speaking, in that its pH was probably lower than seven) soup (again, in the broadest of definitions: a liquid).

When Sherlock finally stood and swept away from the table, John glanced back and found it unsurprisingly empty. Near the entrance, Sherlock seemed to have cornered a waiter. “Tell your manager to change the door handle,” he demanded.

“What’s wrong with it?” Poor bloke. John couldn’t restrain a smirk.

“It’s very misleading.”


	3. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was how it was, wasn’t it? For Sherlock, all the time. Unable to keep his mouth shut, the smartarse, and not without consequence, but without a friend to back him up. John could’ve been that: he was right here in town, right now. Probably gearing up for some rugby. If he could pay himself a visit, what’d he say?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I meant to post this sooner, but am just now getting the chance. For anybody who’s curious, the name of this section of the story, Through Galaxies of Apple Trees, comes from the song “Laundry Girl” by Ludo. (It’s probably one of my favorite love songs ever. Check it out!)
> 
> More thanks to Morwen and Lani for their beta-ing/idea-ing/proofreading assistance. And, thanks to everybody who’s been reading this. I really hope you’re enjoying it!

As John made his way back to the time machine, he weighed his options. Yes, at some point he would need to go back to when he was supposed to—what was it Mycroft had said? five years ago?—and tell himself not to talk to Sherlock. And anyway, he’d have to give himself the new coordinates to land at, apparently somewhere on Holmes property.

God: “Mummy” Holmes. Missus Holmes? Was she married? For what little mention Sherlock and Mycroft had made of her, they mentioned a father even less. But then, his own parents had hardly been a topic of discussion between Sherlock and himself. All John could say for certain was that there was a Mummy Holmes (and even then: he had not observed, had no evidence). But he would just have to trust what he’d said, for now, that the location he’d gotten was safe. Well, surely he ought to test it out first, before just handing the coordinates over? Sherlock had mentioned fifteen years ago. He could try that, and _then_ (then, if he really _must_ ) meet with Mycroft again, and try the coordinates again. Two data points were better than one, always. And Sherlock had mentioned fifteen years ago. It was important. It was important enough for Sherlock to mention to a random stranger in a restaurant; it was important enough for him to latch onto a voice and think he recognized it. Well: It could’ve been anyone. Maybe it wasn’t John at all. In fact, its being John seemed quite unbelievably unlikely.

But John knew better than to conclude that it therefore couldn’t be true.

So: so he would go back to—Christ, to when Sherlock had been but fifteen years old, or thereabouts. Surely then he wouldn’t be in such a state as he was now. Surely he would be happier, less…strung out. When had that started? In university? Sebastian Wilkes had known Sherlock in university—“We hated him,” he’d said, and every time John thought it he so desperately wished he’d right then grabbed “Seb” (Sherlock had called him Seb, why? John hoped it was cruel, a hated nickname, not…), smiling, glib Seb, breathed down his neck with a hand drawn back in a fist and held back by a thin layer of the sort of self-control only Captain John Watson could muster, and dared him to try to keep that smug look on his face if he talked shit about Sherlock one more time. John remembered the flickers across his friend’s countenance at Wilkes’ remarks: _oh_ , he’d thought, every time, feeling a bit like Sherlock—discovering things from the finest of details—but at the same the reverse—for he knew much less than he’d thought about Sherlock, about his apparent obdurateness. But they hadn’t known each other so long then; he didn’t want to intrude, to ask, and then there was the case, the ASBO, and…

God, but if he would’ve—was that it, was that even part of what had been eating at Sherlock? And then he had gone and tried to steer him around himself. _Put on the hat. Take the gift. Just smile._ God.

Well, he could fix it. He could be there for Sherlock, and—maybe he couldn’t do much, but he could be there, and know, and maybe somehow Sherlock would know that it was true, what he was always telling himself about everyone else being idiots. Because they were. Only an idiot would do the sort of thing that would drive Sherlock to jump from a bleeding building. From a hospital. From St. Bart’s. He’d always been fonder of the place after meeting Sherlock there. Now, he could hardly look at it.

Maybe he could look at it _now_. Now, Sherlock was still alive. And he would be, John told himself, he would keep being alive—because John would stop that disaster—stop it long before it started.

He would go back fifteen years, and be there for whatever had happened to Sherlock that he remembered so vividly. Well: Sherlock remembered most things vividly, didn’t he?—of the things that he remembered. It was the fact that he hadn’t _deleted_ it. John wondered if this time around he ought to keep his mouth shut. Would it be better if Sherlock hadn’t even recognized his voice at the restaurant? 

And then he’d get back to five years ago (ten years later than where he’d be soon), and give himself the right information. He didn’t want to get distracted, forget—even if it did mean having to see Mycroft again sooner than he’d have liked to. If he forgot to tell himself not to talk to Sherlock, would some disaster transpire? The world would shift around him and suddenly be awful. John would never meet Sherlock, or Sherlock would hate John. He had to remember to tell himself, and give himself the coordinates. He’d do it soon enough.

John finally reached the house, entering cautiously on the off chance there was someone else who had found their way inside. His hand twitched ever so slightly in the direction of his gun, still tucked in the back of his trousers.

But there was nobody, and there was the time machine, just as he had left it, but with more power now. It was nearly entirely charged—good. John wondered whether the physical effects of traveling would be worse this time around, since he would be going back an entire fifteen years, rather than four. Would he remember the trip this time? Or maybe there was little to remember. Maybe it was instant. It was time travel: was there such a thing as instant or not instant? Better questions for somebody like Andrew. Ah, right: Andrew. Brian. His client. He would also have to find Andrew, sometime. Well, there was plenty of time for it; he could just set the machine to come back a few hours after he’d left and go straight to Brian’s and give him the news, whatever it was, and it would make no difference to _him_ if John was gone a day or a week or a month in the meantime. (Or longer? However long it took to save Sherlock. He’d do it.)

He was able to dial the year back to 1993 and still the engage button remained lit; there was no change to it when he tapped along an adjacent keypad and entered the coordinates. Where had they come from?

What date should he choose? He could leave it at the same date—Sherlock had said fifteen years before, which, come to think of it, was really inconveniently vague. But then would Sherlock find it odd, hearing John on the same date fifteen years apart? Did Sherlock himself even remember the date? 

Bollocks. Well—he’d just have to choose something and work from there. So far, that strategy had worked for him. Okay: earlier. A bit earlier. A different month, a different day. Just to be safe. April: that would be fine. And…seventeen. April seventeenth. That was quite distinct from the sixth of May. And maybe he could find someplace to sleep once he was there; now that he was here, stationary, away from Sherlock, John realized how tired he was. It only made sense—he hadn’t gotten any sleep last night, if “last night” was the sort of term he could use anymore. Perhaps he had gotten _some_ , though—he had no idea how long he’d been unconscious in this empty house after traveling here. Maybe it had been a decent amount of rest. Still, he’d be needing somewhere to sleep soon enough. He only had a little money on him—damn. He should have asked Mycroft for—no. No, he shouldn’t have. Of all the people he’d want to borrow money or favors from, Mycroft was at the bottom of the list, especially now that he knew John had a time machine. John would find a way. 

He wrapped the cord he’d plugged into the wall back into the box with the other cables. All right: all appeared to be in order. At least now he knew what he was getting himself into—not that it seemed to help. He felt just as unprepared as last time. He should’ve charged his laptop—well—lot of good it would do him in 1993. Still, if he would need to use it to charge the machine—ah—but it had plenty of juice; last time, when it was only at half, he could still go back fifty years, if his theory about the engage button was correct.

John clambered up into the machine, checking once more over his person to make sure he had everything, and was in a fit enough state to travel. He took a few deep breaths, observed his surroundings carefully. He’d shut off the lights—good. Everything was just about as it had been before he appeared, he supposed. He half expected to see Sherlock peering through the door, having waited for him around the corner and followed him out of the restaurant—but there was nothing. Well, of course not. This Sherlock didn’t know him; to this Sherlock, he was just a stranger in a restaurant who happened to have a sort of familiar voice. That was good; if he could keep this up, he wouldn’t have to worry about causing some sort of drastic spiral out of the course of events he knew—he’d still meet Sherlock, he’d still blog about him, they’d still grin and covertly elbow one another at crime scenes. He could just change the details: no Moriarty to make Sherlock look like a fake. Perfect.

Decisively, John smacked the engage button. 

 

***

 

As before, John drifted to consciousness feeling immensely drained. This time, night air chilled what of his skin was exposed. And, bloody hell: the headache. Jesus Christ, like he’d drunk himself half to death and woke up to a bright sunrise—except that it was dark, which was, perhaps, a blessing. He fished his torch from his jacket pocket and with a shaking hand raised it to observe the area around him. Grassy: a garden? But above him, some type of roof. A gazebo. His machine had landed under a gazebo. Somebody had been expecting him—perhaps Mycroft had arranged for it. But no: this was before Mycroft knew. Maybe the gazebo had always been here and Mycroft had picked these coordinates knowing that.

John stumbled from the machine. No use bothering with pinching his skin: He was well aware he was dehydrated, perhaps nearly dangerously so. He hoped there was a fountain or something around here. That was the sort of thing people put in posh gardens like this, wasn’t it? No, but that wouldn’t be sanitary to drink from. Would Mycroft or Sherlock be the one to have taken after Mummy Holmes? Would the fountain be pristine or filled with pig intestines pinned around the edges? It could be perfectly clean. But…not worth the risk. And anyway, maybe there was no fountain. 

He groaned and leaned back against the frame of the machine, sliding back to the ground. He shouldn’t sleep now, but god, it was tempting. He kicked his legs out to stretch them, and one leg thudded against something. It had a little give—not stone or wood—but— John shone his light onto it. Oh: a case of water bottles. How convenient.

Somebody had definitely been expecting him.

And taped to the case, a set of numbers. John dug into his pocket and compared: the same set copied onto his paper.

Unlike his copy, this wasn’t his own handwriting; it wasn’t even Mycroft’s small, neat hand. It wasn’t, John was relieved to find, Sherlock’s. He couldn’t place it at all. One of Mycroft’s assistants, maybe. But again: Mycroft didn’t know yet. Ah, perhaps he’d been lying. Or, Mycroft or one of his assistants could’ve taken the machine while John was gone, any time while John was or will be away from it, and put this here. It could be anything. Best to leave the paper. He’d take down a new copy of the coordinates so that he could give the other one to himself later, and still have a copy, just in case.

But first: water. Unlikely it was anything malicious—perhaps he’d left it here for himself. That seemed quite likely. And the bottles were all sealed. Fantastic; he could just take a bit of a break here, drink a little water, have a bit of a nap, and be off to find Sherlock in the morning. Or perhaps the afternoon—he would be in school, wouldn’t he?

It was such a strange notion—Sherlock, sitting down when somebody else told him to. John was certainly not envious of whoever had been assigned the task of the direction of Sherlock’s education. Surely stubbornness was a timeless Sherlock Holmes trait. 

John drifted off amongst an array of emptied water bottles, trying to imagine how a parent of Sherlock Holmes would apologize to the poor sod of a teacher who’d found six types of mold growing along the windowsill that most definitely hadn’t been there the week before, or couldn’t get Sherlock to stop talking long enough to study his maths, or had to console half the class because Sherlock had pointed out whose parents were getting divorced, who was poorer than he liked to let on, whose big sister was an alcoholic…

 

***

 

He awoke, blessedly, to nothing. Rather: Nothing had changed but that it was now bright, and John could see that the gazebo was part of what appeared to be a highly secluded garden. Massive but well-trimmed shrubberies lined a path around the gazebo; the path led out to a trail lined by thick trees, narrow enough that John almost felt the need to tuck his shoulders in as he walked it, straightening his back out, feeling much better than he had the night before. He felt like he was in a maze—but after a stretch the path led out to a wider swathe of land, a house—well, mansion—distant on the other end. Best to avoid that, then. That would be where Mummy Holmes and her violets were, and John was not terribly keen on the idea of finding out whether the threats were true. Perhaps he should have somehow cleaned up the water bottles—carried them out here with him? No use—he was probably being monitored anyway. 

John consulted his phone for the time: 11:23 AM. Ah, rather later than he’d thought. Well, he’d doubtless been in need of rest, and it was comforting to find he hadn’t been bothered over the course of the night. It was a lovely, well-hidden place. 

So: it was just about lunchtime, then. God, and he was starving. Shame whoever left him the water hadn’t also thought to place a packet of crisps or something to tide him over. 

Travel to the road was easy enough; John debated hailing a cab but with a glance through his wallet figured he might be better off just walking. Soon enough he’d have to either find some way of acquiring money—it wasn’t as if he could use his card—or else he’d have to nip back to 2012 to pick up some cash. He grinned a little at the thought, “nip back to 2012”—he wouldn’t be so surprised if he woke up shortly and realized he’d just been asleep this entire time. Or maybe he’d just gone mental, and there was no waking up. Ah, well. He’d avoid going back, for now, if he could. God—this was so much better. Perhaps because it was the springtime, now, and he’d left from the winter, everything here seemed in color compared to the grey of before. 

Wait—of course—he could hardly use his own money now. It was 1993, for god’s sake. _Shit_ , he thought, _definitely should’ve left myself a bag of crisps._ He wondered briefly if the money he’d spent on his hot and sour in 2008 had been too recent—what would the owner do, getting notes from three and four years later? Ah well—too late now. Let Mycroft handle it. Surely he could manage something like that, if he could field Sherlock breaking into a high security military base.

It would be so much handier if he had Sherlock’s eating habits. Sherlock with a time machine: Would he eat at all? He would always be on the move, always busy, his mind always occupied. He’d never think to eat until the finally passed out. (He’d pass out in a Chinese restaurant, and John would wander in and find him, and, not knowing him, treat him and take him to hospital, to St. Bart’s, and rouse him, and they’d still meet there. It would be funny, wouldn’t it—but then Sherlock would wake up and get bored and scramble back to his time machine, and disappear. At least he wouldn’t die that way. He could travel ‘round Moriarty in circles and circles and circles, and dizzy him, and laugh about it.)

Perhaps he would have to travel to a later time to eat, unless he found some way of acquiring more temporally appropriate currency soon. God, that was inconvenient. Well, he could hold out for a bit longer, and look for Sherlock first. John hadn’t the foggiest idea of where to start searching for him; before, he had sort of just…been there. 

Schools: that’s where he should look. God, no, that would be…that would be a bit strange, wouldn’t it? To just pace around a school. And anyway, it wasn’t that Sherlock had _seen_ him—just that he’d heard him. Much as John hated to admit it, Mycroft was probably right about minimizing his contact with Sherlock. John could see and talk to Mycroft because Mycroft was _Mycroft_ , and would probably take great joy in keeping the little secret of the time machine, to hold over John’s head whenever he liked. Mycroft was going to implicate himself in John’s life whether John liked it or not—whether because of the time machine, or Sherlock, or both. But he had to make sure things went right with Sherlock—that was much more important. If Mycroft got pissed off at him and never spoke to him again, John might count that as a significant advantage of his trip. If he nudged the careful balance of keeping Sherlock’s life just where it was…

“You think you’re pretty damn clever, don’t you?” The words weren’t directed at John; they came from quite far off. Around the corner of—oh. John backed up against the wall of the post office, and tilted his head forward just enough to take a peek around the corner. Some adolescent, grinning cruelly, his stance more a swagger than anything—John felt the pit of his stomach drop. It couldn’t be Sherlock…but…the problem was, it _could_. School nearby—not so terribly distant from the Holmes residence. _Pretty damn clever._ These three things, pieced together…

“What is it that you do over lunch, Holmes? You walk home and cry to your mummy? That’s where you’re headed, isn’t it?” A different voice. “She must make her precious little boy some sandwiches at home after he has his little cry. You never eat at school.”

“Correct, for once, Hedley—I don’t eat at school,” god—god, it was—the voice was nowhere near as deep, of course; scratchier and, if it were possible, more pompous, but there was no way this wasn’t Sherlock—“it’s hardly necessary to bother with a lunch when I’ve had a perfectly adequate dinner the night before. Not that you would know quite what constitutes an adequate dinner, would you?”

John tilted his head back against the wall. _Shit, Sherlock,_ he thought, _you can’t do that, god, that’s not how you…_ His train of thought was interrupted by a muffled smack and the sound of clattering against pavement.

Sherlock continued—though, it sounded like, with effort: “How sad for your mum, that your father has such an awful gambling habit. And he’s not terribly good at it, is he?”

Another crack, this one louder. John heaved a deep breath in and out, shaking against the effort of dashing around the corner to make sure Sherlock was—well, of course he wasn’t okay, god, of course he was the one being thrown to the ground, or against the wall, or…he peeked around, just briefly. Christ, there was Sherlock, a younger, smaller, twiggier Sherlock, in a heap on the sidewalk. Thankfully, though, no blood—not that John could see in his brief glimpse, anyway.

“There’s nuthin’ dignified in getting back up, Holmes,” said the first voice.

“Yeah, there you go, just keep right down there,” the other added, and it sounded as if he might be dealing a few kicks to Sherlock. 

“You oughtta just take the rest of the day off.”

“Maybe just don’t come back ‘til next year. Or at all. Don’t worry, you won’t be missed.”

“Ah,” he could hear Sherlock wheeze, “you’re concerned, and rightly so, that I’ll be tipping the grading scale against your favor.” John winced: of course Sherlock not knowing when to shut up wouldn’t have been a recent phenomenon. He’d always been like this, hadn’t he? And he was rather a bit of an arse, nothing new there. Still John found himself wondering if there might be a way to teach these two to know better than to beat Sherlock up, corner him and threaten him and…he really didn’t have any friends, did he? John drew in a breath through his teeth. It was arseholes like these who kept piling these ideas of worthlessness and unwantedness onto Sherlock—Sherlock, who pretended to shrug them off, but clearly couldn’t _entirely_ …

“You keep your mouth shut, or Missus Stephenson’s finding out you broke into her classroom last weekend.”

“Don’t think we didn’t know.”

Silence. 

“All right, there’s a good lad. Come on, Hedley. Still plenty of time for a bite.”

They spat back at Sherlock as they left, and John was suddenly steely, determined and waiting and he would… As they sniggered with one another, John noticed the sound getting louder—perfect. They were coming this way. He’d just wait, casually, stalk after them…he couldn’t…he couldn’t check on Sherlock first, no. Sherlock would be fine, wouldn’t he? He would turn out fine. This was as much as John could help, and he was hoping that he himself would be able to refrain from physical violence.

The two kids rounded the corner, all clad in their posh uniforms, hardly paying John any mind as they continued on their way. John trailed after them for just a bit, and finally, they seemed to notice. One nudged the other and they turned around. “Afternoon, chaps,” John said, though it came out more of a growl.

“What do you want, old man?”

Ah, yes: that was how they would read him. Mild John, unassuming John. A nobody, some clueless bloke nosing into something that was none of his business. Oh, but this _was_ his business. “You know, it’s not a terribly good idea to beat people up—”

“Yeah? I bet you got beat up in school, didn’t you?”

“—Especially people cleverer than you are.”

“That so? And how do you know he’s clever? He’s just an arse who pretends to know things about people.”

“It’s ‘cause it’s the only way anyone’ll talk to him,” the other added. “If he insults a bloke and he’s gotta teach ‘im a lesson. Like we just did.”

“Ah,” John said, though he could barely restrain the roar behind it. “You know, I’ll bet I could teach you boys a lesson myself.”

One looked him over. “Pshaw. I doubt it.”

“No, I don’t look it, do I? I bet Sherlock doesn’t look it either.”

“Ah, you two related, or something? How sweet, Sherlock’s daddy, coming to the rescue.”

John titled his head down, brows casting a shadow over his eyes. His body shifted beneath him, back straighter, shoulders squarer, and he appeared to grow a couple of inches, suddenly breathing down their necks. He growled out a soft, “Oh, much worse than that.”

One of the boys took a step back, clearly apprehensive, but the other crossed his arms. “Yeah? Like what?”

John took in one shuddering breath, nostrils flaring, and leaned forward, looming over the boy, who leaned in, grinning, expecting a whisper, challenging John to do more. So he did: he roared. “Piss the fuck off, you worthless prat, and don’t you _touch_ him again!” It echoed down the street: Captain John Watson. Then, he did drop his voice. “I can find you, and I will, if I have to. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.” No, not following them, of course; but if they showed up again later… “I said I could teach you a lesson, and I can. I’ve beaten men twice your size to the ground.” A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps—but true enough. Certainly he _could._

Now both boys were quivering a little. “O-okay,” one said, the one in the back. “C’mon, Nathan.” 

“You can’t back that up,” the other—Nathan—muttered, though he seemed doubtful.

“I think I’m rather above clocking a child to prove a point.” But his hands tensed into fists, and he took half a step back. It was an effective form of intimidation: the boy in back grabbed Nathan’s sleeve and tugged at it, and they fled. John stalked back to the corner, hoping to peer around and look over Sherlock again, if from a distance, make sure nothing had been broken—but he wasn’t there. He seemed to have left something behind, though, something small… John approached it and snatched it up. A wallet—and a note, obviously quickly scribbled onto the back of some chemistry papers.

_Pick-pocketed Nathan when he shoved me. He doesn’t need it, nor do I. Take what you want. Don’t worry, the poor one is the other prat.  
Thank you.  
SH_

John glanced back over his shoulder and noticed a small figure receding in the distance. “Sherlock,” he mouthed. He was at once thankful Sherlock had left, or he’d have had an impossible time of not speaking to him, but regretted being unable to verify his—well, his health, for one, and—god, he wasn’t miserable, was he? Was this a daily thing? John trailed behind him, wondering why he’d left—shyness, maybe. Was Sherlock shy? No, surely not. This was different, though; how easy was it for him to thank someone? The note was more than enough. And it was probably healthy to shy away from a bloke you’d never met but who somehow knew your full name. John removed the money from the wallet—considerably more than a sixth form kid should rightfully have on him, anyway, he thought, and probably plenty more after that for next week’s allowance, right?—and placed it in his own, leaving the rest of the wallet where it was. Nathan would just think he’d dropped it while he was busy throwing Sherlock around—

This was how it was, wasn’t it? For Sherlock, all the time. Unable to keep his mouth shut, the smartarse, and not without consequence, but without a friend to back him up. John could’ve been that: he was right here in town, right now. Probably gearing up for some rugby. If he could pay himself a visit, what’d he say? “Hey, enjoy that shoulder while it lasts. Oh, by the way, if you ever see some pretentious pain-in-the-arse posh kid, hair like this, eyes like this, being harassed by some other pretentious pain-in-the-arse posh kids, step in, won’t you? In fact, why don’t you just patrol around this area over here watching out for him? No, it’ll be worth it. Even worth missing your date tonight, yeah, I swear. She’s gonna lose interest in a couple weeks anyway. Not your fault, she was just trying to make somebody else jealous. It’s even worth your date after that, John, and another after that. You’ll see when he looks at you. You won’t think so for a good long while, but in the John Watson exchange rate, one of those stupid, ‘Oh-do-you-really-think-I’m-that-brilliant?’ Sherlock Holmes smiles is actually worth an entire date. Unless she’s really h—no, no, even then, I think, even then. I swear.”

And he’d ask himself something stupid, like, “You gay, mate?”

And he’d say, “You don’t get it, you don’t get it, it’s not about that, it’s _Sherlock_ , you’ll know when you see.”

But he wouldn’t see, would he? Not yet. John pocketed his wallet and focused his gaze in Sherlock’s direction, waiting a few more moments before setting off after him at a distance.

No, John wouldn’t see for a good long while what it was about Sherlock that made him worth it, not until John went into Afghanistan and came out a different man. Priorities changed, people had changed, and John found himself disconnected. Now, here, in 1993, he’d had no reason to think about anything other than rugby and women: he was talented with both, and they were all he needed. Not that his schooling had taken a back seat—he had just been particularly successful at juggling it and those two hobbies. He’d had a number of nice, successful relationships; he was good boyfriend. After Afghanistan, he felt like an old man, with his limp and nightmares and loneliness. He wondered if he would ask his dates if they snored in the hopes that they did. When he dated Sarah, and she’d so gracefully dealt with the Chinese circus, Sherlock’s eccentricity—even, all things considered, the kidnapping—that he’d swelled with hope. But she had never spent day in and day out with the bite of fear for her life ever haunting the edge of her mind and somehow getting used to it, somehow learning to love it; there was no rush, for her.

“If you would’ve known all that was going to happen,” she’d asked once, “would you still do it? You know—go after that gang?”

“What do you mean? I had to. They were killing people. The police weren’t getting anywhere with it.”

“You could’ve just let Sherlock do it.”

John had rolled his eyes. “Yeah, good idea. As if I’d just let him go out and almost die about six times every night without someone watching his back.”

“He did it before, didn’t he?”

John looked down at his knuckles, and then out the window. “I suppose he did.”

“You could skip out on helping him sometimes, I’m sure. For instance, this Tuesday evening?” she smiled, raising her eyebrows.

“Tuesday he’s going to…no, I can’t, I’m sorry.” He couldn’t explain to her that the second day he ever knew Sherlock he (probably) saved his life, killing a man in the process (but not a very nice man), couldn’t convey that Sherlock having made it this far was probably pure _luck_ from what he’d seen, couldn’t convey that chasing criminals down alleys made him feel a particular brand of _alive_ that dinner and a movie never could, not any more. When he was younger, there was plenty of chasing to be had with both rugby and women, but that was such a long time ago that trying to place himself back in his shoes and imagine that that was his life made him nauseous, now. Sherlock knew that; Sherlock didn’t make the mistake of trying to treat him like nothing would’ve changed from before his time in the war—maybe because Sherlock hadn’t known him then, more likely because Sherlock simply understood that the man all of John’s acquaintances saw when they looked at him—the man Mike Stamford saw, the man any of his college friends saw—was not the same man John was. Most actively avoided bringing the war up, fearing, perhaps, triggering violent flashbacks in John’s mind. It was a reasonable and considerate thing, but John felt his hackles raise when their eyes started darting, searching for a way to avoid mentioning his time in Afghanistan in favor of something _safer_ , more pleasant.

“You’re an army doctor,” Sherlock had said, the second time they met. So simply. Like that. He knew. He understood. Present tense: you are an army doctor. Because John was, he still was, he still was an army doctor, still this day. It wasn’t, as others seemed to think, something he shed the moment he was flown back. He was a doctor, of course, they all decided. Back from the war, so a doctor like he was before. “Seen a lot of injuries, then. Violent deaths.” Sherlock didn’t tiptoe. Sherlock never tiptoed. “Bit of trouble, too, I bet.”

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” were Sherlock’s first words to John. He never tiptoed.

And so it hadn’t taken John long to realize that he would, of course, give up his dates for the sake of making sure his flatmate didn’t _die_. John wondered, sometimes, if he himself was responsible for an increase in risky behavior on Sherlock’s part. Or had Sherlock really been so careless even without a soldier—and a doctor—keeping an eye on him? Either way, Sherlock would act like that now ( _then_ ) whether John came or not, knowing that John knew that he _could’ve_ been there, if he’d just stop it with that useless job, with those useless dates. It followed easily that he would have to be prepared to, however grudgingly, drop his plans whenever Sherlock’s life hung in the balance.

What had taken more time was realizing that it wasn’t just keeping Sherlock from dying that was worth missing those dates, but seeing Sherlock _happy_. It had been a rare enough thing before, he surmised from others, to see a smile on Sherlock’s face at any time that there wasn’t a serial killer on the loose. (And John learned that what they were describing was not, in fact, Sherlock’s genuine _smile_ ; it was a smirk. They hadn’t seen the real thing, so they couldn’t know.) One afternoon he and Sherlock had returned to the flat to wash blood from their hands—sheep’s blood, in fact. The murderer had tried to use it to cover up a trail, and it worked just well enough to stump Scotland Yard and grant Sherlock two manic hours of running around, babbling about how the technique had been employed poorly in the past, and all the ways this killer had amended those errors. He and John had cornered the man; in the end, John physically wrestled him to the ground and pinned the wrist of the hand in which the man was gripping his gun, twisting it to prevent him from pulling the trigger. Sherlock leaned down to pull John’s gun from his waistband and held it to the murderer’s temple until he dropped his own weapon. 

And there they were giggling over the sink, and John listened to Sherlock describe the finer details of one of his deductions.

“Brilliant,” John had said, grinning. “That’s brilliant, Sherlock.”

Sherlock flashed a, “You really think so?” smile, and John shook his head a little, wiping his hands on his trousers (oh, they were already ruined anyway). Sherlock had looked at his own hands, and then at John’s, and finally reached over and grabbed a towel. His smile faded, and John felt his gut sink. “You have a date in less than half an hour.”

“Oh,” he’d said. He’d nearly forgotten.

“Unfortunate. I was hoping you could assist me with a brief experiment in removing blood from clothing—since half the work is done for us already,” he motioned to their sullied outfits. “It’s only sheep’s blood, but the results are likely widely applicable to…ah, but it will have to wait, I suppose. Well, no; then the blood will be too dry for the conditions I meant to test…” 

“You know, Monday is a crap day for a date. I don’t know what I was thinking when I suggested it. I’ll see if she wouldn’t prefer Wednesday.” And Sherlock had beamed. “My good jumper’s all ruined now anyway.”

“None of your jumpers are good jumpers, John. Honestly.”

“Oh, you have an opinion on what I wear now, too, do you?”

“Of course I do.” John hadn’t really wanted to ask about that one. He texted his girlfriend and, predictably, it was only a matter of weeks before she’d had enough of it. Well, it was fine. He had slept with her a couple of times. She was a very quiet sleeper.

So it wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ to go on dates any more. But Sherlock usually interfered anyway, somehow, eventually. Maybe that was why it had been so easy with Mary—but no, there had been more than that to it; that really was something different. 

Sherlock was, apparently, actually going home, John discovered as he followed him. Still farther off, a car pulled into the drive. Mycroft: even barely past twenty he was on his way to wherever-he-was, wasn’t he? John was getting closer, now, could maybe creep around some shrubberies and get within earshot of where Sherlock had paused near the vehicle. He had to be careful: if Sherlock he turned around right now, he’d see John. _This isn’t as bad as it looks_ , John told himself. He wasn’t—no, of course not. Anyway, Sherlock would’ve done this sort of thing to him, given the opportunity.

“What do you want?” Sherlock asked, as Mycroft climbed out. John choked down laughter as quietly as he could. God: that haircut. “Why are you here?” He paused and stepped forward more aggressively, pointing at Mycroft and then to the street behind him. “That was _you_ , wasn’t it?”

“I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Sherlock. I am merely here for—”

“Damn it, Mycroft, I’m not _stupid_ ; you were having me f—” but he paused, and John recognized the tilt of Sherlock’s head: deduction. It tipped back: realization. He was probably muttering, “ _Oh_ ,” but from here, John couldn’t make out Sherlock’s face. His stance returned to its usual cool superiority. “Well. Obviously not. My mistake.” _Oh,_ thought John, _you thought Mycroft hired me to follow you, didn’t you? And now you’ve figured it out._

“What are you going _on_ about, brother?” Mycroft was clearly agitated by Sherlock’s rapid shift in mood.

“Nothing of importance to you, rest assured.” John could hear the smirk in Sherlock’s voice, and couldn’t hold back a smirk himself. Watching Sherlock brush Mycroft off was perhaps one of the most fantastic spectator sports in the world. Sherlock’s smugness, Mycroft’s obvious displeasure as the tide turned against him…it was like a scene in a movie he’d never get tired of. There were variations, though—here, maybe, Sherlock and Mycroft were not quite as well-practiced at this game as they were in 2010. They seemed more brothers here than they ever had when John had seen them before, though the differences were subtle: Sherlock still leaned in slightly, waiting almost earnestly for Mycroft’s responses, or for him to notice something about him, to say something about him; Mycroft, for his part, was more expressive—perhaps he still believed he had a fighting chance of getting through to Sherlock.

“I find that difficult to believe. What happened to you, Sherlock?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Now, I have some experiments waiting upstairs, if you don’t mind.” His voice very much indicated “whether you mind or not.”

“I do, in fact.” Sherlock snorted. “Mummy will throw a fit, seeing you in this state. What happened?”

“Oh, don’t act as if you don’t know. This can’t be shocking news every time.”

Mycroft frowned. “This is avoidable, you know,” he motioned to Sherlock, his ruffled uniform and bloody lip and bruises that were beginning to manifest themselves on his arms and face and probably under clothing, too. There it was again, John thought, that flicker of pleading on Mycroft’s face, so hopeful that his brother would see his point of view.

“Grand. I hadn’t been aware.” Sherlock shifted his weight to his left foot, and then to his right, before settling back into a more balanced stance. Restless? Maybe, but the tone of his voice said otherwise: energized.

“Sherlock, this simply won’t do—”

“Sorry, Mycroft, can’t hear you, must’ve gotten my eardrum burst, what a shame,” Sherlock answered, making his way toward the door with something like a skip in his step. John covered his smile with one hand, as if he were afraid its brightness might project into the drive and reveal his position, and ducked further behind the shrubbery when Sherlock shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the road on which he’d come home, on which John had followed him. He was smiling, too—a secretive smile, a giggling-at-crime-scenes smile, and John was obliged to join in. Sherlock turned back to the house and fished a key out of his pocket.

“Sherlock!” Mycroft barked, and this time Sherlock paused, directing his gaze at his scuffed shoes. But silence followed, and after Sherlock stood waiting for further comment for several long moments, he continued on his way. Mycroft’s posture loosened, and he leaned against the car, burying his face into one hand. “Sherlock,” he said again, more quietly, but Sherlock was gone.

Mycroft had said: “I worry about him. _Constantly_.” Maybe it was true. Maybe Mycroft had worried about Sherlock constantly since the day Sherlock came into the world. Then why had he so foolishly, so thoroughly, made himself a part of Sherlock’s destruction? If he could see everything else coming a mile away, why not that? The Holmes brothers: so susceptible to Moriarty’s particular brand of cunning. Sherlock hadn’t seen it, either.

Sherlock peeked back out the door. “Mycroft, would you like to see what a human head looks like after being submerged in water for forty-eight hours?”

Mycroft’s eyes darted up, suddenly wide. “A _head_ —a— _Sherlock_ —”

“Oh, calm down. It was an unclaimed body. Stevens at the morgue told me they were going to cremate it the next day anyway. I helped him find—well, it doesn’t matter; anyway, he was the one who got it for me.”

Mycroft’s eyes widened further. “Mummy is going to hear about this, Sherlock! You do _not_ need to be associating with such— _rabble_ ,” he sputtered, “—and— _dead bodies_ —you’re barely even—what will people think?”

“ _Mummy_ thinks it’s fine,” Sherlock shot back with a self-righteous sneer before his expression melted to a smirk. “She even helped me decide on what experiments to do.” He seemed proud of this. _Mummy loves me best_ , said his satisfied grin, although John was quite certain that Mycroft would disagree with the idea that Mummy’s approval of experimenting on dead bodies was a sign of undying affection. “Well? Coming?”

Mycroft’s nose wrinkled as he grimaced. “I am _not interested_ —”

Sherlock harrumphed and the door slammed shut again, and John covered his mouth to hide a chortle. They weren’t _normal_ brothers, anyway.

Well: perhaps he ought to get a bite to eat with his newly found wealth while he could still use it. Then, he’d have a few words with Mycroft in 2003.


	4. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This will all go significantly more expeditiously if you don’t waste time lying.”  
> “Sorry?” was all John could think to say.  
> “You and I both know what you were doing in that shop.”

John’s journey back to 2003 was as uneventful as climbing into a time machine and waking up half-delirious ten years later could be. The garden seemed almost completely unchanged, perhaps with the exception of the exchange of one type of flower for another. John had decided on yet a different date—March 21 this time—lest he bump into Sherlock again and arouse suspicion. What would Sherlock be up to now? He might be out of university, mightn’t he? Unless he was one of those sorts who dabbled around for years. John imagined Sherlock intentionally failing a chemistry class over and over so that he could continue using the lab. He’d smuggle chemicals for his own use, and do enough research for the professors that they’d look the other way. Or maybe not—maybe his professors, too, hated him. He probably corrected them all the time.

Well, first things first—how would he find Mycroft? John’s fists balled up thinking about it—about Mycroft, so concerned, _actually_ concerned about Sherlock, ten years ago, and Mycroft some eight years hence, who would so foolishly and heartlessly strip away all of Sherlock’s secrets, all the smallest details of his life, to give to Moriarty. _It’s your fault_ , he told Mycroft, in his mind, _it’s all your fault. Don’t you know how to be a good brother? Don’t you know?_

John didn’t know how to be a good brother, either. He wasn’t supposed to have to: he was the younger one. But even in his own youth, maybe just in the very year he’d come from, Harry would stumble home weeping, or drunk, or both, and all John could think to do was stare for a few moments and then leave her alone. There was a point at which they’d liked each other—he’d admired her. She was strong, and brave, and a lot of things that a lot of other people in his life weren’t. Once, the neighbor boy had started calling John names and, when that didn’t get a rise out of John, threw his _bicycle_ at him. John remembered crying on the drive while the other lad stood over him, still not done expressing his opinions, and then he remembered Harry, getting home from school and throwing the kid into the yard. “Don’t you talk shit about my little brother,” she’d shouted at him, “and don’t you hurt him again.” It hadn’t been a problem after that, until much later, when Harry was gone—but by then, John knew how to take care of himself.

After a point, though, Harry had stopped being strong and brave. Well: she was still both of those things, but they were so far overshadowed by the new parts of her life that they manifested themselves in more painful ways: fights at bars, trouble with boys. John was still too young to understand the reasons for her trouble, only knew that there was something Harry very much needed that nobody seemed to be able to give her. And he couldn’t, either. And now, well—after so many years of the two of them being so very convinced they didn’t need the other, making up could only be messy, if it was even possible. John couldn’t remember how to treat Harry lovingly, only remembered how to lecture her about the dangers of her drinking, which he tried so desperately not to do any time they did meet up but usually failed to avoid, in the end. She hated that he was a doctor. She hated that he was so skilled at picking up girls.

_Joke’s on me, Harry,_ he thought. _If things don’t turn out with Mary, I’m probably never going on another date again._

Mary—what would he tell her if—no, when—he managed to save Sherlock? “Hey, sorry, I love you but I’m moving back in with my flatmate.” Well, she would understand. Mary always understood. And she was a fan. She probably wouldn’t even ask when John was going to move in with her. “I might just stay at 221B forever,” John could tell her, and she’d shrug and smile and ask if he wouldn’t mind at least dropping by a couple times a week to say hello.

But she wouldn’t, really, would she? Mary was special, she was different, she was understanding—but everyone had limits. She’d draw the line somewhere, and John would have to pick, and it would hurt. It would hurt him no matter what; it would also either hurt her or Sherlock.

And then, depending on what he picked, Sherlock could be alone again. John couldn’t do that. He’d said as much to Sarah already: can’t let Sherlock run off to something dangerous without someone watching his back. John would have to be there: otherwise, if the case was especially exciting, Sherlock would forget to text John to come meet him, and he’d be running about London and chasing down gangs and they’d tie him up and kill him and John would read about it in the papers the next day.

At least the way it had happened he’d been there and seen it with his own eyes—did that make it better? It made it awful. It made it terrible. Horrifying. But maybe it was better. He didn’t have to wonder.

John was a good friend. He was a good flatmate and he would save Sherlock and he would do right by him for as long as he lived to do it. 

The thought hurried him out of the machine and over to drink some of the water that had still been left for him. Oh, damn—should he have left some water behind for himself before? John crumpled the bottles and did the best he could to stack them up so that they wouldn’t blow away. He nodded to himself and squared his shoulders, looking over the machine once more. Still plenty of power—and by the looks of it, no one had taken off with it yet. He’d have to be more careful, he supposed, anytime after this year. Mycroft would know. John kept a wary eye out as he came along the closest part of the path to the house, and marched along to the main road, the steady deliberateness of his thoughts of the past matching his step.

John wasn’t a good brother and probably he never would be, with the state of his and Harry’s relationship.

Well, no: He was a good brother for a while. He had tried very, very hard for a while. When he started trying he thought Harry hated him for that; when he stopped, she hated him more. 

“Harry,” he’d say, as she got ready to leave the house, clearly in a mood. “Please, don’t.”

“Don’t what, John?” she’d snap.

“Drink, Harry. Please.”

“Piss off,” she’d spit, and storm out the door.

But over the course of the next couple of years, he’d found it more and more difficult to plead with her each time, knowing it would be to no avail. Eventually, he stopped. Harry would pause by the door—John didn’t look up, but he could always hear the hesitation, Harry’s breathing as she waited. He glanced up once to see hurt in her eyes, and couldn’t bring himself to do it again. 

“Harry,” he’d knocked on her door once, some time after that.

“John,” she’d answered quietly.

And he’d just stood there, back slumped against her door, for half an hour. 

“I miss you,” he finally said.

“Piss off,” she said. Softly.

But things continued to pile between them, John’s enlistment not the least among them, and so, even though it had happened years before, that was the last pleasant moment they’d shared before he went off to Afghanistan. 

What was the last pleasant moment he’d shared with Sherlock?

He’d called Sherlock a _machine_. Before he went and jumped off a building. God.

What was their last moment?

He didn’t really want to think about it. Maybe later. Not now. He was already thinking of what a rubbish brother he was; he didn’t remember the thousand signs he should have seen of what Sherlock was about to do. Maybe later.

Sherlock might be consulting by now, mightn’t he be? Well, maybe it was a bit early. That wasn’t what he was meant to be focusing on now, anyway. He needed to find Mycroft. He’d tell him what he needed to tell him, and he’d get on his way. How to locate the man? He’d obviously done it before—well—it was obviously manageable, if he’d already given the instructions to Mycroft to give himself, or if he was already going to, or whatever the appropriate phrasing was for knowing that in the future you’d go to the past and tell yourself something. How high up was Mycroft in the government now? Maybe he’d held that same minor position for a decade. Maybe John could just wave at every camera he passed and eventually catch somebody’s eye. Of course, if it was the wrong person’s eye, things could get rather inconvenient. 

There was always the Diogenes Club; that had been the place so far. Perhaps that was why Mycroft had taken him there before. Or at the very least, Mycroft seemed to prefer the club. Well, it _was_ just up Mycroft’s street: quiet, stifling, and it made John just a bit uneasy. Maybe more than a bit.

He was, though, far enough from the Diogenes Club that walking was not going to be an option. A taxi it would have to be, then. 

 

***

 

John entered the building as quietly as he could, keeping a sharp eye for Mycroft. If he had his own room here, and was currently in it, John would have to wait at the door. He got dirty looks from a few of the patrons as he ambled about. Ah, damn. No luck. No Mycroft. Maybe waving at the cameras wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Well, he could try back later. He’d walk around a few streets, keep an eye out, and come back. If it came to it, he could piss them all off and start asking around until one of them answered him, or threw something at him, or whatever.

There was a pastry shop nearby: maybe Mycroft would be there, John thought, smirking to himself. It _was_ conveniently located near the Diogenes Club. Ah—in fact, John recognized the name, although the storefront was a bit different now than he was used to seeing. Sherlock, apparently, hated the place. Once, when Sherlock and John had been on the way to the Diogenes Club to drop off some case files Mycroft had left with them, John had suggested going into this shop for a bite. Sherlock had grumbled about the shop, insulting its goods and its employees and its customers, and steered John away. Ah, but of course, John deduced—Mycroft must have always frequented it. Sherlock would want to avoid it in case Mycroft happened to be there. In this case, then, this was exactly where John wanted to be. 

When John entered, there was no one at the counter—no one, indeed, anywhere in the shop, no one queued up to make a purchase or seated at one of its two small tables. No Mycroft, unfortunately, which was a thought that John would never have expected himself to have. There was, however, whispering from the back room. John craned his neck, but could make out none of the figures; he hadn’t even any idea how many there were.

“Oy!” said one of them, leaving the back and approaching the other side of the counter. “What can I get you?”  
“Oh—ah—just—popping in to take a look,” was all he could think to say. The goods were expensive: definitely not what he’d be spending his limited funds on, if he could help it.

“Vincent?” came a muffled voice from the back. “Who’sit?”

“Nobody,” the man at the counter called back. “Some bloke who don’t even know what he wants to buy. Well?” he turned to John.

“Wha’s he look like?” the voice was louder this time. Oh— _oh_. That was—just back there—that rumbling tenor was familiar even with its slurred words, temporarily transporting John back to the memory of hefting a drugged Sherlock what felt like half a street uphill but was actually only the steps up to 221B after Irene had drugged him. Even with the extra cigarette-roughness, John recognized the source of that voice, and if he—if Sherlock—was given enough reason he could peek out and see John and—

“Sorry, don’t think I’ll be buying anything today,” John said quickly, and turned on his heel to exit the shop. Mycroft wasn’t why Sherlock hated the place. It was this, it was the drugs and the memories and all of the things that by the time John knew him Sherlock must have been so desperate to escape. Sherlock didn’t want to think of what he’d done here, didn’t want John to be a part of that—or maybe, worse, something awful had happened to him here. This was a piece of Sherlock’s past that Sherlock didn’t want to revisit.

John made it a few steps down the street before some burly brute collided with him. The fellow grabbed John by the arm.

“Come here, nice an’ easy, sir.”

“What’d I—” he tried to jerk his arm out of the man’s grip, but his hands were massive. The one that held him was wrapped almost all the way around John’s certainly non-negligible upper arm. Before he could protest further, a strip of cloth was slipped through his mouth and another over his eyes. He was being directed—somewhere. John tried to count the steps and their direction. Back where he’d come from, for a bit of the way, and then a sudden right into what had to have been the unassuming little antique shop he passed, based on the sound of the bell on the door. _Good deduction,_ Sherlock-over-his-shoulder said, except his voice was a bit muffled, a bit out of sorts, a bit fuzzy, just as it had been from the back room of the pastry shop.

When John was released, he wasn’t in an antique shop at all: it was a small room that had perhaps originally been storage for such a shop, but it was now empty and bright and clean.

“This will all go significantly more expeditiously if you don’t waste time lying.” Oh, damn, and of course it was. John’s blindfold came off. Mycroft.

“Sorry?” was all John could think to say. 

“You and I both know what you were doing in that shop.”

“In—what, in the pastry shop? I don’t know, I was standing around and deciding everything there looked like rubbish.” Sherlock had been on something in that back room, had been bleary-eyed and dizzy and high. 

“You left in quite a hurry.”

John shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

Well, that would be a difficult one to explain, wouldn’t it? Still: it was an easy opening. Mycroft had _said_ not to waste time lying. “I think your brother was just about to recognize me, which,” Mycroft opened his mouth but John continued, eyes daring him to speak, “ _which_ is something I’m avoiding for completely _different_ reasons than whatever you think.”

“Oh? I am a difficult man to surprise. What is your connection to my brother?”

“Friend.” John could at least enjoy this a bit. Let Mycroft suffer in confusion for a while. He deserved it. 

Mycroft’s mouth curved down in disbelief, but he did not target John’s word choice directly. “Yet you say you were avoiding him.”

“Avoiding him recognizing me, anyway, yeah. Because, _Mycroft_ —” That earned him a quick blink of surprise. “Because we’re not friends _yet_. Will be, though.”

“My brother doesn’t have friends.”

“But he will have f—a friend.”

“You seem terribly certain. Have you met him? You may yet change your mind.”

“I have met him, and I won’t, no.”

“And when did you meet him?”

“Well, let’s see.” He couldn’t hold back a smirk now. Mycroft was clearly peeved at being led around by some bloke he’d obviously hoped to pull off the street for reasons related to Sherlock’s…habits. “I met him two years ago. I guess for you that’ll be in about seven years.”

“Stop talking nonsense.” Mycroft frowned, but then his eyebrows rose in recognition. “Ah,” he steepled his fingers. “I see it now. You have suffered brain damage from drug usage.”

“You’re worried about Sherlock,” John pointed out, feeling a bit like the man himself. “You think I just sold him some drugs.”

“Yes. That is what you did, is it not…?” he paused, waiting for John to fill in his name.

No harm in that. “John.”

“John. Yes. Is that not what you did?”

“It is not what I did. If you’d been watching me this whole afternoon you’d know that I wandered down your own street at about two fifteen and caught a cab to the Diogenes Club—figured you’d be there; you usually are, at least when I go looking to find you—” he paused, and smirked a bit at the twist of Mycroft’s mouth, “popped in, and left. I wandered around for a bit, stopped into that shop, heard your brother in the back, and left.”

“Because you didn’t want him to recognize you.”

“Because we aren’t supposed to meet yet. Because I’ve traveled back in time from 2012.”

“You’ll forgive my complete disbelief of your story.”

John’s lips flattened as he thought. Mycroft had to eventually accept this, right? What angle should he take? “Oh, wait, see this,” he dug his wallet from his pocket and passed it to Mycroft. “Take a look through my money. I think I’ve got a few other things in there with the date on them as well.”

“Fabricated, then,” Mycroft thumbed through them, but paused at one of the notes. “Not a very convincing twenty.”

“It’s real. That’s how they look now. We stopped using the other ones, what, must’ve been two years ago…well. You know. Two years ago for me.”

Mycroft narrowed his eyes, apparently processing something, and turning the note over. “You couldn’t have known about this.”

“I really didn’t.”

“Well,” Mycroft’s eyebrows were now raised, “that certainly is at least somewhat compelling.” He appeared to evaluate John again. “So, supposing even a fraction of your incoherent babbling is true, you traveled here using some sort of a device?”

“Yes.”

“May I see it? It would certainly make your case a more convincing one.”

“No.”

Mycroft’s eyebrows knitted. “Well. I daresay I am not in the practice of taking people at face value.”

“Tell you what, you can find me wandering around town, then, and see that there’s two of me here right now.”

“Worthless, if you have a twin.”

“An identical twin ten years younger than I am? Anyway, you can look me up in your records. I don’t look all that much like my father, and I don’t have any brothers. Maybe there’s somebody else in the world who looks a whole lot like me, I don’t know. Just look and you’ll see.”

“And how do you suggest I find this fellow who you allege is you?”

“Well, I’d have been leaving St. Bartholomew’s right about now. You could probably find me in the coffee shop just across the street. I usually chatted up some girl or another after my shift. It was a pretty regular thing.”

“Mm,” Mycroft nodded, and seemed to be placing a call. “Yes, the one you see just now,” he said to whoever was on the other end. “And—yes. Is he? Really. Very well. Do me a favor,” and the intonation was cold and threatening, “and forget we spoke about it.” He turned to John. “There was a man of almost your exact physical appearance crossing the street just a moment ago.”

He’d probably passed just the spot he’d been at when Sherlock fell. He walked over that spot every day, and couldn’t have had any way of knowing how important it would be, what devastation he’d experience just there, years later.

“Well, that was me.”

“Or a very elegant ruse.”

“Yeah,” John sat back, rolling his eyes, “I was planning on getting manhandled halfway out a pastry shop whilst I ran away from your dead brother, just so I could tell you to watch some bloke made up to look like me cross the street and impress you with my bloody awful fake notes.”

Mycroft cleared his throat. “My dead brother, you say? Is that a threat?”

“Oh, I hadn’t mentioned that yet, had I? Well, here’s the thing, Mycroft. Where I’m from, your brother jumped from a building and offed himself. Right, and it’s actually all your fault.”

“Even if you had any way of proving that true, I doubt it is the case. What is your business with my brother?”

“He’s—he was—my flatmate.”

Mycroft grimaced. “My apologies. He was awful enough to live with in our youth, I can’t imagine…”

“He wasn’t awful. He was—yes, he did once transfer his ligament experiment to the crisper drawer without telling me, and he did tend to leave the—he wasn’t _awful_ , Mycroft.” The example seemed to go at least partway to convincing Mycroft that he knew just who he was talking about: the man’s posture eased slightly.

“I shall be pleased to do nothing more than take your word for it.”

“Shall you? I don’t think you shall.”

Mycroft’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing in response to that comment. Probably, John thought, he was already dreaming up ideas for surveillance, if he wasn’t in the habit of installing some form of it in his brother’s quarters already. “So, if I opt to believe that you have, in fact, managed to somehow travel from a time where my brother has _friends_ and shares a flat with someone who doesn’t kick him out after two months—what are you doing here?”

“I’m going to undo the mess you made and keep Sherlock from dying, that’s what. I had to pop by here to give you a few instructions.”

“Instructions?”

“Yeah, you’re gonna see me again. Except, it’ll be the first time I’ll have traveled back.”

“I take it you knew me before having traveled?”

“Well, yeah. Always with your nose in Sherlock’s business—it was pretty unavoidable, wasn’t it?”

“Ah.” 

“I’ll be disoriented and dehydrated. You’re going to pick me up from wandering around on the streets and have a bit of a chat with me and give me some water. Got it so far?”

Mycroft buried his face in his hand momentarily. “This is ridiculous. Very well, let us say that all this comes to pass. What then?”

“Well, you need to tell me a couple of things. Get out a pen.”

“What?”

“You’ll read them straight to me from that notebook you always carry about in your right jacket pocket.”

“I assure you my memory will be more than sufficient. But if you insist,” he removed it from his pocket, glanced up, and waited.

“Okay, right. Well, first, I’m going to think I’m asleep or completely loony. So uh, tell me that I said that I’m not, and this is actually happening.” He paused and waited for Mycroft to finish. “Right. Also, tell me not to talk to Sherlock—say I can’t talk to Sherlock. Say that _I say_ not to talk to Sherlock. I don’t want to screw everything up and have a conversation with him too early on. Right, and tell me to also not make eye contact with him. It seems like he’ll maybe glimpse me enough times that he could recognize me, so…”

“I see, and so you fled the shop, thinking he would see you and the universe would collapse around you, or some other such foolishness.”

“I just don’t want to not meet him.”

“I believe most people would make an effort to _avoid_ meeting him, if they had the choice.”

John decided not to grace that with a response and tried to remember if there was anything else he had to tell himself. Right, the not talking, the not making eye contact…the fact that he had really time traveled…but of course what had mattered so much to him in the first place had been…of course. God, had he already gotten so used to the idea already? It had felt so much like returning to the way things were supposed to be when he finally did see him, and right now the last thing he wanted to do was place himself back in the shoes of the man who could only think of Sherlock as _dead_. No, he would fix that and never think of it again—and he needed to make sure his past self knew that it was okay, it was fine, it would all be okay—he could get exactly what he wanted, he could see Sherlock again, alive. He could replace memories of paling lips (they had been paling, hadn’t they?) and no pulse with something so much better. “But tell me that I can _see_ Sherlock, that’s fine.”

“I take it, then, that you have already done so before—” he cleared his throat, “today.”

“Yes,” John nodded. “Yes, I have.”

“When?”

“None of your business.”

Mycroft lifted an eyebrow and scribbled a few more things down.

“Right,” John tried to ignore Mycroft’s note taking. “So, you’ll want to look for me at Peckham—near the Criterion Café I s’pose—on May sixth in five years. You don’t have to believe that I’ve actually traveled through time right now, just do that and you’ll see. Oh!” John pulled the coordinates from his pocket. “Give me these, too. They’re a safe place to land. Your mother’s garden, in fact, but don’t even _think_ about _touching_ the machine.” The corners of Mycroft’s mouth lowered. “I’m the only one who knows how to keep your brother from dying, so if you want him to still be alive after 2011 leave it be.”

“And after you ‘save him’?”

_Note to self_ , John thought, _destroy the machine the second you save Sherlock_. “We’ll see,” was all he said, which seemed to please Mycroft enough.

“This is utterly ludicrous,” Mycroft said, though from what John could tell he seemed much more prepared to believe it. “You’re quite certain you didn’t simply stop into that shop to sell Sherlock some sort of hallucinogen?”

“Quite certain,” said John.

“And that isn’t something you’ll be doing in the future?”

“Never.” John swore he caught a glimmer of genuine—gratefulness, or thanks, or something—in Mycroft’s eye. “Oh, and in case you do want to check against your records, my name is John Watson—Doctor John Watson. I’ll be shipping off to Afghanistan in May 2006.”

“And my brother truly considers you a friend?”

“Truly,” John answered. “I’m going to do whatever I must to save him.”

“How was it that I caused his death?”

“You gave somebody very dangerous far too much information.” Best not to mention Moriarty by name—what if Mycroft went off and killed him right now for good measure, and so there was never any cabbie, never any chase through London, never any leaving his cane at Angelo’s and realizing just how much being Sherlock’s flatmate and friend would do for him? “He used it to make Sherlock look like a fake.”

“A fake what?”

“Oh, right,” John hoped Mycroft wouldn’t somehow use the fact that he had this knowledge beforehand against Sherlock. “He’s going to start consulting for Scotland Yard. As a detective. Well, not _just_ for the Yard; individuals come to us too. Well—him—then us. He’s…he _was_ …he’ll be…brilliant at it.”

“Ah,” said Mycroft, and John couldn’t tell if it’s because Mycroft would expect nothing less than a certain degree of cleverness of Sherlock, or if he didn’t believe John, or if he really didn’t care. 

“This person made it look like Sherlock set up all the cases that he solved, like Sherlock hired this arsehole to play the ‘bad guy,’ made him look like he wasn’t actually a bleeding genius at what he did. And I don’t know why, but somehow because of it, Sherlock killed himself. He told me he was a fake and jumped.” John took in a rattling breath. “He wasn’t a fake. He was a bloody genius. He was…”

Mycroft didn’t seem to be listening anymore. He scrawled a few notes onto his page, and then grabbed his mobile again. “Could you set up an account for one Dr. John Watson? Yes. Yes, five hundred should be sufficient.”

“Sorry, what?” John asked as soon as Mycroft hung up.

“If you’ll wait just a few more minutes, my assistant will be in with a card for a debit account for any spending you need to do after this year.”

“You don’t trust me not to use the wrong notes.”

Mycroft smiled. “Just trying to be of assistance to my brother’s,” he paused, rolling a word around on his tongue to get a feel for it in its current context, “friend.”

John briefly considered refusing the offer and leaving—probably Mycroft was just using it as a means to keep tabs on John’s whereabouts, or, as it had been the first time they met, was some sort of a test—but using this would mean that he didn’t have to travel back to 2012 to get more money, or steal it from whatever arsehole was giving Sherlock a hard time at that point in his life. And it was unlikely turning this down would send some signal of untrustworthiness to Mycroft; at least he hadn’t been asked to spy on Sherlock. John would still have to worry about money during years before this, but this would help. Anyway, he didn’t have to use it if he suddenly found himself with sufficient means not to.

“By the way,” John thought to add, “the time you first meet me is the thirtieth of January, 2010. I won’t know anything about this then, so…treat me as much like a stranger as you can.”

“No one is a stranger to me,” Mycroft leaned back into one of the laughs that was so unnerving it nearly drove John to fidgeting in his seat. Perhaps it was manufactured for the specific purpose of making others squirm as if there was cold sweat sliding down their backs. “I am sure I will have known a certain number of things about you by then regardless.”

“Right,” was all John could think to say. “Yes. Not creepy at all.”

 

***

 

John left with the card and a distinct sense of relief. Good: as far as he was aware, that was the last time he’d have to speak with Mycroft about any of this. He had the urge to go back to the pastry shop and hide behind a newspaper and see if Sherlock was still there—but if he was, he would probably take good note of what John looked like, and that would be it, he’d be remembered and everything would be ruined. 

Anyway, John wasn’t about to pretend that he wasn’t made the slightest bit nauseous by the idea of a drugged-up Sherlock. Yes, he knew he’d done—well, _something_ , anyway, in the past, both from the few times Sherlock had alluded to it and from seeing Sherlock in the Chinese restaurant later—earlier, all strung out and coping poorly. But hearing Sherlock speak with anything other than his usual crisp enunciation and sharp words was painful. John was reminded of Baskerville, the combined panic of seeing Sherlock in such a state and the sting of his words. He had worried that night that whatever Sherlock had seen, or whatever had caused him so much doubt, had taken permanent hold of him, and that Sherlock would never return to his old self. It was a bit of a foolish fear, in retrospect, but at the time it was present enough in John’s mind that when he had curled up in bed at the inn just hours after solving the case, the drug took hold of him and carried him through the night with horrible visions of Sherlock becoming a shell of himself. One of the nightmares had placed him in Afghanistan, which in and of itself was not an unusual subject for him to wake up to frozen in sweat, with Sherlock. Sherlock miscalculated the range of his target and hit John instead, hit him in the shoulder. After that, all Sherlock would do was curl up and cry. They came home and John was fine but for the shoulder and Sherlock was hollow, was Sherlock on the outside with nothing in the center, was _literally_ hollow, his guts and his brain scooped clean out, and John volunteered to carry Sherlock’s heart in his own chest while they fixed up a spot to put it back into Sherlock’s. They used John’s chest cavity as a mold for how to form Sherlock’s.

“Your friend’s doing a very good thing for you,” one of the doctors said to Sherlock. John realized after waking up that the doctor had been himself.

“I don’t have friends,” said Sherlock, and then he turned to John, to chest-heaved-open John, not surgeon-John. “I’m afraid,” he said. And then John woke up.

John thought about asking Sherlock if he’d had horrifying dreams the night after they’d shot the dog. Sherlock was already awake when John snapped out of sleep; he had stripped the blanket from his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. Sherlock was staring out the window, but John noticed him tapping his fingers on the sill as if he was playing violin. It was driving Sherlock mad, then, that he couldn’t soothe John’s nerves while he slept with some sound. Sherlock had actually already done so, had already soothed John in his own sleep from the other bed not so many feet away. He had thrashed about and occasionally mumbled, what John could only assume were deductions. John had drifted off into his own nightmarish slumber sometime around what he swore was the mention of a decapitated teapot.

“Still rather early,” Sherlock mumbled from beside the window. “You should get back to sleep, John.”

“You, too,” John argued.

“Your noise awoke me. Were you having nightmares? What about?” Investigation, apparently, not particular concern for John’s feelings.

“Afghanistan.” It was true enough. Sherlock didn’t need to hear the rest.

“Ah.” Disbelief. Had John cried out, had he said Sherlock’s name?

“Sorry for waking you.”

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. Then, apparently struck with an idea, he strode over to his nightstand and picked up his phone, intensely focused on it for a moment. 

“What is it?”

“I thought I had…ah.” He set the phone back down and tapped it again, settling onto the edge of his bed. A melody—tinny, thin, but definitely a melody—drifted from Sherlock’s phone. Violin?

“Is that you?”

Sherlock averted his gaze, and it was just dark enough that John couldn’t discern whether he was blushing, or even if he was smiling or frowning. “Yes.”

“Why is that on your phone?”

“Go back to sleep, John.”

He felt like he’d gotten barely any rest, as if the nightmare had been all waking hours and he was only just now lying down to sleep. Sherlock’s was a compelling argument. John tucked the blankets back over his shoulder and curled up. “You too, Sherlock,” he muttered. He’d drifted off with his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s knees, bent over the edge of the bed. Whether Sherlock had returned to sleep as well was a mystery: when John woke up in the morning it was late, and Sherlock was already downstairs. Like so many things, they never discussed it. There was no real reason to; they were both ready to set aside the memories of being so torn down by that sodding drug.

When John had the same dream as at Baskerville again after Sherlock had fallen, it went farther. After Sherlock turned to him and spoke with frightened eyes, John said, “Take my hand,” and stretched his left hand toward Sherlock. Sherlock took it in his right.

And then John tried to scoot toward Sherlock’s gurney but fell off his bed instead, and Sherlock fell with him, their hands still intertwined, their unfinished chests wide open and spilling out organs onto the hospital floor. “Now people will definitely talk,” Sherlock said, nodding down at their entangled entrails, and John woke up just as the hot rush of death surged over him.

No, John decided, he likely couldn’t bear the idea of watching Sherlock destroy himself in any way, drugs or otherwise; he would rather not see him so desperate for escape or fun or camaraderie or whatever it was that he got from whatever drugs he did that he would stifle down his fantastic mind to do it. John only wanted to see a Sherlock that could cut him down, that would wrinkle his nose and ask John to please not try to wear the same shirt for a third day before washing it again; he only wanted to see a Sherlock with fingers dexterous enough to breeze through any sheet music placed before him.

Except that wasn’t quite true: Because while he had time to do it—and he wouldn’t later, because he would be destroying the machine the instant he finished what he had to—and while Mycroft had no idea of his existence before 2003—there was something else John wanted to do. He wanted to see Sherlock before the drugs and the cutting remarks and the violin and tell _that_ Sherlock, in his mind even if he couldn’t aloud, that everything would be fine, that Sherlock _did_ have friends, or at least _a_ friend, and a damn good one, a friend who would do anything for him if Sherlock could only say what it was that he needed. He wanted to tell that Sherlock that everyone was going to be wrong about him while he grew up: he wasn’t a freak, not even close. He wasn’t a freak or a fake or even a sociopath; he was the most brilliant, the truest and the most alive, the most feeling person, the most human human being. Little Sherlock would look up from his building blocks or sand castle or microscope slides or half-dissected rabbit, and he would hear these things and know that everything everyone else was ever going to say to him was wrong, that he was worth it, he was worth so much. John felt like he was on the hospital floor again, organs heaving from his open chest. He’d show little Sherlock. “The second you meet me, give me this,” he’d point to the extra heart he was holding onto, that had just fallen out with everything else, “and I’ll keep it safe for ever and ever.” For ever and ever: like fairy tales, little Sherlock, but real.


	5. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (IV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could take the leads they didn’t, go the places they wouldn’t check. Sherlock had done it plenty of times. Either they would find the culprit first, or he would. “You’ll find the murderer,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “You know my methods.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a shorter chapter than usual, so I should apologize doubly for the delay! It had to undergo some considerable revisions (many many thanks to Morwen). The next one is almost done, so hopefully it will be up sooner.
> 
> Also, thanks to everyone who’s been reading this! I really appreciate your support and I hope you continue to enjoy the story. There’s a lot still in store that I can’t wait to share with you!
> 
> One last thing: I tried my hand at making a(nother) fake book cover for this story. [Here it is, if you want to take a look.](http://toasterfish.tumblr.com/post/28888226403/i-thought-it-would-be-fun-to-try-to-do-one-of)

John stumbled out of the time machine on February 24, 1984. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he muttered as he heaved and leaned heavily against the machine. Nineteen years: That was quite a distance, wasn’t it? He should have thought to drink up loads of water before he came; now he was paying the price. Even Sherlock-over-his-shoulder scoffed: “Obviously.” Maybe he was in too much of a hurry. Should’ve sat and…got his bearings. Well, at least there was—damn, no, no there wasn’t. This would be the earliest he’d gone to, so he wouldn’t have left any water for himself. John reached into his jacket for his notepad, and flipped to the page after the one on which he’d written the coordinates. “WATER,” he scribbled in handwriting truly befitting to his profession. Well, he’d be able to read it, anyway. He laid it against the console of the machine: there. That way before he left he’d remember to bring some water here for himself for later.

But for right now, he was in a pretty bad state. One skin pinch test confirmed that theory: this was bordering on dangerous. He wasn’t unused to it—it had been a more frequent state of being than he would have liked during his time in Afghanistan—but that didn’t make him feel any less awful. If he could think past the buzzing in his head and the nausea in his belly then he’d still have to work past the increased heart rate. A fountain in the backyard was beginning to sound rather appetizing right now. 

Of course, given that he couldn’t do that, happening across a drinking fountain or else finding someplace he could order a glass of water would have to do.

In the end, it was a much longer walk than he’d hoped. It had taken him several streets away, maybe more, and he was no longer in even vaguely familiar territory. At last he was finally able to find a café that would give him some water.

Naturally, he got a few odd looks for the sheer volume of water he attempted to consume, though nobody spoke up about it. (And what an odd question that would be, anyway.) He sat in the café long enough to watch customers come and go, ordering and eating and laughing or holding hands or jostling shoulders or discussing business plans. Here they all were, not knowing that in less than thirty years Sherlock Holmes would be jumping off a building. Here they all were, not knowing about a bomber who played puzzle games with men named Holmes. (Here they all were, not knowing about tiny little cell phones and text messaging, John thought, so really, maybe expecting them to expect Sherlock, who was much more unbelievable than a pocket-sized computer, was a bit much.)

There was, though, a moment at which the customer exchange slowed. It was subtle: Had John been subconsciously timing the frequency of customers entering? It was just that it had been a little longer than usual since anyone came in, maybe a minute…and when the next customer entered looking shaken and exchanged quiet words with the cashier, it was enough that John was tempted into taking a few steps away from his table to look out the window. The street had changed entirely: pedestrians had accumulated in a ring in the street. John sprinted from the café to hear a number of shouts for “Ambulance!” rising from the crowd. He pushed his way to the innermost part of the ring to see what it was everyone was looking at. 

Oh, god. A girl—young, maybe twenty—collapsed on the street. 

John quickly evaluated her state: Still—deadly still—dead. She wasn’t breathing. “Has anyone called an ambulance?” he shouted to the crowd after suppressing the initial urge to pull out his mobile—it was 1984, after all. “Or the police?” The young woman’s possessions were strewn about her, items from her handbag spilled out over her arms and arcing along a path to her face. Her face: flushed, red, covered in a thin sheet of sweat. John was sure he could decipher what had happened to her if he could properly look everything over—but then he would have to speak with the medical technicians and the police, explain why he could prove he was a doctor in 2012 but not in 1984, explain why if they looked him up they would find an eight-year-old lad with nothing but a still-blooming interest merely in the idea of being a doctor. God, it felt awful—he should _do_ something—but nothing _to_ do, if she was dead. If he _could_ —maybe he could learn—well, it was just, this looked like…

“Clear out!” shouted one paramedic, cutting through the crowd to make a path for several more with a stretcher. They crouched over her, muttering amongst themselves. “Does anyone know how long she’s been dead?” he asked.

“Can’t say for sure,” John told him, “but I think it’s been a few minutes at least.”

“And you are…?”

_A doctor, dammit, now let me take a closer look,_ John wanted to say. “I’ve just been here for that long. It didn’t look like she was breathing when I got up to the front.”

“Did you see it happen?”

“No,” John shook his head, and looked to the other people around him.

“She just fell,” one said.

“She was stumbling around and keeled over.”

“She was talking to herself, I think. Didn’t make much sense. Maybe she was drunk.”

_Nonsense_ , thought John, because she didn’t smell the least bit like alcohol. “No, look,” he said, “she has those rashes on her skin, her face is all red. In fact, she looks flushed all over.” He paused, considered leaving it there, but couldn’t. “Maybe if you look at her arms and hands you can see whether she tried to catch herself or not?” She hadn’t: John had noticed no indication of impact on her forearms or the heels of her hands, where she would have tried to reach out and catch her fall. Instead, he was willing to wager that her shoulder and hip had taken the brunt of the blow: the way she was sprawled out, the path of her possessions, they all pointed to her having swooned onto her side. 

Sherlock-over-his-shoulder said, “No prominent marks, bruises.” John tried to tune him out, to focus on the data rather than the voice.

“So probably no one knocked her over,” John said. “I mean, or else she’d have bruises from some kind of a blunt weapon, right?” Of course. But he didn’t want to be doing these peoples’ job for them. They could figure it out. He was just…helping.

“Poisoning,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. _Obviously_ , thought John, but he didn’t say anything. They’d figure it out.

“This almost looks like one of those suicides,” one of the paramedics said. 

“The Yard will be out here soon enough, they can take a look.”

John blinked. This was…familiar. “Sorry, what…what suicides?”

“It’s been all over the news, haven’t you seen? Girls up and offing themselves. Dunno, it’s probably just some drug kids are into nowadays, and they don’t realize how dangerous it is. Overdose.”

“Not suicides,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, “she clearly wasn’t planning on dying.” _Obviously_ , thought John. Unless they were accidental, which was always a possibility.

“And this is the same thing?” John asked. “The same drug? Or poison?”

“Scotland Yard will have a look, but I’d bet so.” 

John nodded and took a closer look at the body—well, as close a look as he could take without anyone shooing him off. There had to be something here he wasn’t seeing; Sherlock would be able to figure out what had happened straight away, with just a glance and a brief inspection of some minor detail. If only John could find it, too.

John crossed his arms, felt Sherlock-over-his-shoulder looming, waiting. He felt like he was once again looking over Carl Powers’ shoe, under pressure to impress. Sherlock had asked such things of him several times since that occasion.

“What do you think, John?” he’d ask, crouching over a corpse or a rug or an abandoned plate of spaghetti. John would take a few seconds to look it over; usually he became self-conscious after a moment and sputtered out a few obvious things and gave up. It got better the more frequently Sherlock asked him the question, though. Once, he’d really taken his time observing the bed of a suspected murderer, tried to keep his calm.

“The sheets are thrown back,” John had said tentatively, “on this side. Which a lot of people do, but…” he glanced around, “…but not this bloke.”

“Because…?” Sherlock had prompted, eyebrows rising and bright eyes shining with what John could only read as hope.

“Because his books are in alphabetical order,” John said, affecting Sherlock’s stance and condescending tone, “and his toothpaste is squeezed from the bottom.”

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. “We’ve not been in the bathroom yet.”

“Just a hunch,” John said, which made Sherlock grin. Sherlock had leaned toward John, as if he were about to pat his back or pull him into a hug—but it had ended up an uncertain and momentary settling of his hand on John’s shoulder.

“Very good,” Sherlock said. “Excellent, John. But…”

“Okay, what did I miss this time?”

“The reason he got out of bed in a hurry and didn’t make the bed before he left wasn’t because he was in a hurry to catch the victim at the train station, it was because his friend called him and he’d left his phone in the kitchen the night before. The bed being mussed up has little to do with the murder, aside from that he got up in a hurry thinking it might be the accomplice calling him up. The murder didn’t occur until several hours later. Obvious from the fact that while he forgot to neaten his bedding—that was merely a coincidence—he _did_ wash not only the bowl from which he ate his breakfast but also the plate from which he ate his lunch.” 

John sighed, slumping his shoulders and rolling his eyes. “Why do you even ask my opinion?”

“It helps,” Sherlock assured him, lip pouting out slightly in what John recognized as his softening out of analytical mode. It was a sort of apology, he knew. Others’ claim that Sherlock was anything other than human was, in the end, simply a result of a gross inability to read him. It was an easy mistake to make. “And anyway, you were right: it _was_ unusual that he didn’t make his bed.”

“Is there something else I’m supposed to have gotten from it?” After all, Sherlock had specifically asked John about the bed. There had to be some clue there.

“Nothing at all.” The corner of one side of his lip tucked up into a light, lopsided smile. 

“Right.” Not likely.

“Well,” Sherlock snapped back into analytical mode. “You _did_ miss the smell of the shampoo in his pillow.”

“Ah.” John raised his eyebrows, prompting an explanation.

“Cheap: not from his own house.” Right, because Sherlock hadn’t seen the bathroom, either, but he would know what kind of shampoo this fellow would own. John smirked a little: even he could see now how that would be possible. “The question is: Where did he wash his hair the day before?”

“And I suppose you already have an idea of the answer to that question?”

“I do.”

And off they went again, although Sherlock insisted that they check the bathroom to confirm their theories. His shampoo was expensive; his toothpaste was squeezed from the bottom up. Sherlock smirked. “Well done.” John beamed.

John snapped back to this scene, letting himself pay close attention to the dead young woman before him. Sherlock would have had no problem with solving this. John wondered if maybe he himself couldn’t help out with the case, somehow. He could potentially save a lot of lives, if he did, and—and Sherlock would be proud (proud in the Sherlock way, which would probably involve pointing out six ways John could have solved everything within half an hour—but proud nonetheless). John could tell Sherlock all about it, after he saved him. 

John could—no, no, unlikely the detectives at the Yard would just let some random bloke meander onto the case. Maybe if he could conduct himself with the same kind of air as Sherlock, just waltz in and act like he belonged there…could he do that? And what would he do if he crouched down to make a deduction and got nothing? What if he was flat-out _wrong_? They’d shoo him away, haul him away by force if necessary. They might suspect him and actually arrest him—and what a nightmare that would be. What’s more, if anyone asked him to prove he was a doctor—well, they wouldn’t exactly accept identification from 2012, would they? Probably lock him up just for that alone. He’d never be able to save Sherlock, and that wasn’t worth risking.

But maybe he could so some searching of his own. Just because the police happened to be investigating it didn’t mean he couldn’t. He’d just…be careful. He could take the leads they didn’t, go the places they wouldn’t check. Sherlock had done it plenty of times. Either they would find the culprit first, or he would. “You’ll find the murderer,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “You know my methods.” John felt a nudge at his shoulder—he had imagined it, he knew, but he still liked the thought—gently pushing him forward to get another good look at the body. He committed as much to memory as he could—he’d write it down later; doubtless John had less memory on his mental hard drive than Sherlock, as he cluttered his with useless things like who the Prime Minister was or whether or not something he wanted to say about a client’s dead uncle was socially acceptable. 

“Right,” John muttered to himself. He might want to ask people if they had seen her—so a physical description would be good. Simple details that anyone might remember, first, for that purpose: long, wavy blonde hair, petite figure, jeans, snug white t-shirt with blue stripes. Teal handbag, moderate in size, white laundry bag packed with folded clothes. Little yellow shoes. She was the picture, John thought, that many would imagine up at the phrase “pretty girl,” all the way down to a small, pointy nose. John also noted what he hadn’t of her symptoms, although the guessed that a lot more could be done to identify the drug or poison in a lab. Did the Yarders know what it was? Maybe he could listen in and find out. If he only he’d been able to see her alive—maybe he would be able to narrow it down more. He would guess, though, that this had been poisoning—not accidental, but intended to harm or kill, if there had been so many other similar deaths. It had happened before, and it would happen again if he couldn’t figure out who did it and how.

John leaned farther over the body. He shouldn’t physically move her things—no need to become implicated—but maybe he could see enough. Sherlock rarely used more than small touches to get what he needed; usually it only took a glance. He was the same with people, of course. Sherlock had moved through the world seemingly making contact with it in as few places as possible. That he stayed connected to one address for more than a month had occasionally surprised John; that he stayed connected to John sometimes surprised him more.

The laundry that had been in the larger bag was mostly folded—clean. She’d been walking with it, so either she lived near here and had taken a taxi elsewhere to do her laundry—not likely, it was mostly shops here and the neighborhoods were probably out of the price range for someone her age, she probably wasn’t married, no ring—or she had been to a laundrette near here. That much laundry, she wouldn’t have wanted to carry it too far. She had another bag tucked into her handbag, but John couldn’t make out what was printed on it. What had fallen out of her bag, though, was a receipt: Tesco, one just down the street. He’d look there. He could make out what was on the receipt—nothing very telling, nothing that immediately struck John as odd, but maybe he could look near those items for something.

He’d have to find out more about the previous deaths—the ones the police had thought were suicides. How far apart were they? Where exactly had they happened? Who was the killer?—Assuming there was one. “Of course there is,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. 

John tilted his head down in a half nod. _Who the hell kills herself on the way home from doing her laundry?_ he agreed. It could be accidental, but what—did she go for a little morning jog to her dealer, decide her laundry and Tesco would be a lot more fun with some recreational drugs? Did she go to a dance club early this morning to make sure she’d have plenty of time to wash her clothes and pick up groceries this afternoon? Got a bad batch? Took too much? Maybe he could find more about what sort of a person she was, somehow, if she was the sort who would do something like that. 

“Don’t bother,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “Check and see if all the deaths were attractive young women.” 

_Much faster than identifying her and assessing her character,_ John agreed. If they were all very similar, it was almost certainly a serial killer. Was this an instance where he was missing one crucial thing—she was left-handed; her favorite color was clearly red, why would she carry a teal bag?—one little thing to narrow everything down, _the only explanation of all the facts?_ Right now there were many possible explanations; John didn’t like that he favored one, but he hoped his gut was telling him so for a reason. Sherlock would probably be able to explain the very subtle things that John only caught subconsciously, observe what precisely made it murder and not an accident. _Something I’d never catch,_ John thought, _she has a chipped nail and the thread on one of her jacket buttons is bluer than the rest, and therefore she was murdered._ He would believe it from Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock would have a reason for it. John had nothing. Either there really was nothing, or his observations were rubbish. Probably the latter. What else made her different? What else defined her? Should he try to figure out the brand of her jeans? Would that matter? There was no telling.

If it was a murder, they needed to find out where she was given the drug. Maybe there he could even find an indication of what it was, if there was nothing in the papers about the specific cause of the previous deaths. Something that caused paralysis—she looked as if she had frozen up when she fell. _She didn’t try to catch herself. _Either she fell unconscious and then collapsed—possible—or experienced some kind of paralysis and fell—equally possible, perhaps more likely given the other symptoms.__

_It would be so much easier if I could work with them,_ John thought as the police and detectives began to arrive. He backed away from the body when he was directed to, glancing over it one more time in the hopes something would catch his eye. But if he wanted to work with them, he would have to act like he knew what he was doing—and not for ten or twenty minutes, as at Baskerville, where at least he’d actually been able to pull rank. He couldn’t pull out any identification here. John could act—he’d done it before for cases, though usually playing the newspaper reporter, not such a challenge—but keeping up Sherlock’s level of sureness, of “if-you-think-I-shouldn’t-be-here-you’re-wrong”-ness, his, well, _charisma_ —would get tiring. At some point, he would mess up. Sherlock had the know-how to back up everything he said, or the wit and wisdom to explain away and distract from anything unimportant or that he didn’t know. Sherlock could play stupid; Sherlock could cry on command. 

John was a reasonable actor, for what Sherlock asked him to do, but Sherlock was a great one. It was a disguise in and of itself. He used it to solve crimes and get things from people and John was sure it had been used on him more times than he was even aware of, because Sherlock _was_ a great actor, but obviously, obviously, _obviously_ just before he died, he… Well. That wasn’t—that couldn’t have been a lie, the feelings seeping into his goodbye, could it have? 

There would be no point. Sherlock had nothing left to get from John, not if he was right about to…it had to be real. If John had nothing else left of Sherlock, besides the violin and the skull and the dust and the flat and the imagination that came with the extra cup of tea and the ghost who leaned over his shoulder, if he had nothing else left of Sherlock, at least he had the knowledge that Sherlock’s big lie was his being a fake, that the truth he used to try to sell it was the wobble in his voice, a wobble meant for John. _I’m not falling for it, Sherlock,_ he’d stupidly thought to himself during that conversation: stupidly, stupidly, _falling_. Had Moriarty dug his claws in so far that he could so thoroughly defeat Sherlock, so definitively destroy his name, that Sherlock truly felt he had no choice but to end his life? Moriarty had fooled Mycroft, too. He had never fooled John, but John never had much say in the matter of the games that Moriarty and Sherlock and Mycroft played.

Now, at least, he did, and it didn’t matter what it meant when Sherlock spoke such painful and such painfully false lies, because he wouldn’t this time, because he wouldn’t call John from that damned rooftop and he sure as hell wouldn’t jump. John could pose it to him some day while they sat in the flat, Sherlock observing what chemical peels away layers of toenails quickest while John wrote up the last case for his blog. “Sherlock,” he’d say, “remember Moriarty?”

“Obviously,” Sherlock would say. He would sound a little wistful, maybe, because for Sherlock it never came to watching his best friend jump off a building; maybe to Sherlock Moriarty would be a fun little memory worth missing. Maybe not: John suspected a great deal of what Sherlock enjoyed so much about Moriarty changed at the pool. From before to after the split-second of doubt that John’s sharp eye had probably picked out more accurately and more keenly than Sherlock knew— _Was John Moriarty all along? Was John working with him?_ —Sherlock had gone from playful to sick, from thrill to horror. 

He and Sherlock hadn’t talked much about it.

Sherlock had been about to say something about it later that night: the sofa, Sarah’s texts, John’s phone, the Bond movies. Sherlock had been about to say something.

John was sure that in those few terrifying minutes at the pool Sherlock had realized something important. Probably it was something like: _Hey, stupid, that John Watson chap isn’t actually going to stand around and let you die if there’s anything he can do about it_ , or maybe, _Oh_ (“Oh,” _oh_ , lips parted just so, the word soft and profound like a private show of one of Sherlock’s grand realizations, just for John), _this man is a friend, a friend, a friend good enough to make up for all the ones I never had but should’ve._ (Sherlock would never think that; Sherlock seemed to view himself as unfit to have friends. Most would agree. Well: except his friends.)

Maybe that’s what Sherlock was thinking; maybe that’s what he had realized. Maybe that’s what he was about to say, one of those things, but harsher, meaner, truer, more Sherlock. “John?” he’d asked, and John had barely even given him a glance, when he should have looked and read Sherlock’s face, guessed, _observed_. “I wanted to…say…” The pause, why the pause? Because it was feelings, because it was Sherlock. What would he have picked instead of ‘say’? Did he consider ‘thank you’? Did he consider ‘express my appreciation for your actions’? Did he consider ‘apologize for being such a git and trying to meet Moriarty alone’? He had said ‘say’ but he had said it only after some thought. Maybe he was considering which word to use. Maybe he was dismissing other possibilities. What would he decline to do that led him to settle for ‘say’?

He wanted to say.

What did he want to say?

But it didn’t matter, and it especially didn’t matter because later, when he saved Sherlock after the pool, he’d have that conversation—sofa-Sarah-phone-Bond— _properly_ and not butt in like an idiot with a smartarse comment just because he couldn’t handle the thought of a soft _Oh_ or Sherlock’s harsh-mean-true-feelings thank-yous, and then John would ask his theoretical question later, maybe a year later. “Sherlock.” He said his name more than he had to. It rolled like shorelines lapping rocks; it started out shattered and came out whole. “Remember Moriarty?”

“Obviously,” Sherlock would say.

“What would you have done if he figured out a way to make you look like a fake?”

“He couldn’t have done.”

“Sure he could.” Sherlock would open his mouth but John would press on. “What if he had? What would you do?”

Sherlock would think about it. He would press his fingertips together in mock prayer, consulting his godly mind for the details. He would think it up then and there: give Moriarty the proper credit, come up with the cleverest way Moriarty could discredit him, walk through all the steps, the whole dance. Would it come out the same? John had no way of knowing; he could only imagine.

“We’d wait for him,” John liked to imagine Sherlock saying, “in hiding. And then you’d shoot him.” He liked that version. Sherlock would then take the number he’d calculated, some figure tucked away in his mind—“number of seconds John Watson has spent praising my intellect”—and dole out exactly that many seconds of compliments to John’s steady hand and sharp eye and deadly calm, and he would do it in just a way that made John feel like some kind of brilliant serial killer, because from Sherlock, that was a compliment.

But that wasn’t what Sherlock would say. John couldn’t fathom what he would say. He would have to wait and find out himself, while writing up a case in 221B with Sherlock and the chemicals and the toenails, later, after he saved Sherlock. Later: right now, there was a different case.

If John could find the murderer, he could drop a tip by the police anonymously—slip a note under the door, call in, or something. John could save the future victims without anyone actually finding out _he_ was from the future. If he would have known to look back on this case from 2012, would he find that they had caught the murderer? Had anyone definitively connected this to the other would-be suicides? Had it continued?

As the police ushered everyone away from the scene and taped it off, John paced back to the corner and dug through his pocket for his notebook, flipping to the page after the coordinates and writing down everything he could remember. He’d look at Tesco first, in the same aisle as the canned tomatoes and near the bread. He could ask the employees if they’d seen her. Maybe from there he could get a lead. Otherwise—otherwise he’d work from there. He could probably finish before the detectives even moved on to look there, if they thought to. The less they crossed paths, the better, if he didn’t want to arouse suspicion. Maybe they’d identify the drug in her body first. 

_What do you think?_ he asked Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. Sherlock raised his eyebrows at John expectantly. _Right, fine. Tesco it is._


	6. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (V)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tremble worked its way up John's spine as he tried to grasp the realness of the situation, that he was really here, seeing and soon to be _talking to_ a young Sherlock—crouched down in a grassy patch near a school, the setting and the air and the time of day so mundane as he reached back and touched something, spoke with someone, _spoke with Sherlock_ , from twenty-eight years ago. It wasn’t a movie or a play or a daydream or a nightmare. God, it was real. He could touch Sherlock’s hand and it would be real—but he wouldn’t do that. Of course. He was a stranger to Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that this chapter being longer will make up for the delay and the shortness of the last one. I also hope you enjoy it! I did a little bit of a doodle of a part of it (link at the end of the chapter). Part of the reason for the delay was that I spent a few days working on a different fanfic for the August contest at [fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic](http://fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. I expect I will be posting it in a couple of weeks once the contest is over. It's much more humorous in tone than this story, so if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, be sure to keep an eye out for it! 
> 
> My eternal gratitude to [Morwen_Eledhwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) for being such a patient and helpful beta. I don't even want to think about all the errors and bumps this story would have without you. :)
> 
> If you find any errors, particularly any relating to my complete lack of knowledge of anything British, please feel free to let me know!

John looked over his shoulder once more at the police. They’d paid him no mind; he was just another pedestrian in the crowd that had gathered, if one who had taken a closer look at the woman than most of them.

Right, the Tesco would be just a few streets down. John arrived there with little other than a few glances from some rather posh individuals who seemed to be questioning his fashion sense. Not that that was terribly out of the norm; he was used the occasional withering look from Sherlock when he donned some of his favorite jumpers.

It was a shame working with the police wouldn’t have worked out—it always helped to have an extra pair of eyes. Even Sherlock had held that opinion. John pushed his way through the door into the Tesco and first made his way to the aisle of the first item on the woman’s receipt. Doubtful canned tomatoes were involved in her death, but it was worth a check. John wasn’t sure if there was anything Sherlock ever got from asking him to look something over; maybe he just enjoyed torturing John, or maybe—hopefully—he was trying to more actively teach John his methods. If John was able to give the police something valuable to help them solve this case as a result, he’d have to thank Sherlock later.

John felt that through Sherlock’s constant insistence that John make observations for him, he had finally started to learn. He’d benefited from Sherlock’s observations from day one, of course. John inspected the area around the tomatoes—nothing to be seen there except that there had been a fantastic sale on them this week. Not that he had any idea of what to look for—some way that a drug could have been administered? Signs of a struggle? Someone still stalking around with wary eyes? John proceeded to the peaches. Sherlock had always been what John needed when he returned from Afghanistan, and that included the constant (usually humiliating) lessons on observation.

The first time Mycroft met John—no, the first time John met Mycroft—Mycroft had pointed out that when John was with Sherlock, he saw the battlefield. It turned out to be truer than John could have known at the time. And even now, even after Sherlock jumped—well, before Sherlock jumped—well—he’d never be doing that again, but anyway, after John had seen it happen—what had kept John something like functional was the fact that Sherlock had taught him to see so much even while Sherlock himself wasn’t there. Maybe it was only a ghost in comparison, but John could still see some of the small things that others didn’t, noticed snippets in the news or heard words on the street that he could interpret and knew _meant_ something. Even while he worked through life with such low energy, he could still feel that he was in a city teeming with criminals and crimes and maybe there wasn’t the chance he’d almost die twice a week now that he wasn’t working on cases with Sherlock, but it was a bit like the war again. That made it easier for John to slip into a routine.

Of course, right now he was in Tesco in 1984 investigating what was probably a serial killing as a quick stop on the way to visiting his best friend, who was currently a six-year-old, so for the time being he was quite sated in the area of excitement and adrenaline and whatever else it was that he needed to make his hand stop shaking and his leg stop hurting.

There wasn’t much to be found, however, among the peaches, or the canned vegetables, or the oatmeal. Well, it wasn’t as if he should expect that whatever it was had come from Tesco specifically. His questions to employees were similarly useless—of course no one would remember some random customer who made a perfectly normal purchase. Maybe the police would be able to find more here—maybe they could look at the security footage, or something. If he got stuck, maybe he’d leave that as a tip, if it didn’t seem the police had checked Tesco. In the meantime, best to keep on it while there was a chance of finding something—well, fresh.

The next natural choice would be the laundrette; the woman had clearly been by there, and John didn’t have much else to go on. She was probably at whichever one was nearest to this Tesco, especially if she’d just been carrying her laundry around.

_Well, Sherlock? Would you go to the laundrette?_ There was no answer, of course. John would just have to make do with his gut.

 

***

 

_If she was here washing her laundry before she went to Tesco, there might still be someone here who would’ve seen her,_ John thought, and Sherlock-over-his-shoulder nodded. John began looking around the place to identify anyone who appeared to have been in the laundrette for a while. _Anyone who’s almost done with their laundry._ His eyes continued to wander over the patrons of the laundrette as he tried to choose the most likely candidate. Even if it was only in his head, it helped John to have someone to talk to.

Of course, he knew that already. On one of his visits to Baker Street after Sherlock d—was gone, John’s gaze had been drawn to the skull on the mantel. He’d just come back from an(other useless) appointment with his therapist, who continued to insist that John vocalize anything he would have wanted to say to Sherlock before he died. He’d already done so, he told her, at Sherlock’s grave (where no one else was around to listen, because _that_ was the problem; his words were words for Sherlock and no one else), but she seemed convinced he had more to say, or should have said it to someone’s face, or something.

“Basically,” John had collapsed into his chair at 221B, coughing down some of the dust as he fixed his attention on the skull, “you’re an inconsiderate git.”

He imagined that the skull, in typical Sherlockian fashion, asked a clinical, “Why is that?”

John went on, trying not to feel crazy, hoping that Mrs. Hudson wouldn’t choose this moment to arrive back at 221. “Well, it’s a bit not good to just up and disappear on your best friend.”

“I didn’t disappear.”

“You were here, and now you’re gone, so yeah, you did.”

“But you know where I went.”

“Yeah, into the ground. Not really as comforting as you’d think. Except,” he leaned back in the chair a bit, readjusting his cane so that it wouldn’t fall over, “ _you_ , you know, the skull, are not in the ground, which is a bit unusual for skulls.”

The skull was already grinning, of course. “Guess I’m special.”

John tried to think of what else he had wanted to say to Sherlock, what else he could bear to say. There was an awful lot, and an awful lot that was still a bit buried, buried like bodies and coffins and a pale grey suit that Mycroft had obviously chosen, Mycroft, stupid, why grey, why Sherlock, why now, and those were buried things that John didn’t particularly want to dig up. After all, if he went through all that effort, what was the point? Sherlock would never hear it. It would just be a lot of work to suss out what words he wanted, what feelings he had to convey, and he’d come out of it hurt and then he’d need to go to even more appointments with that damn therapist (because what else was there to do, besides burden Mary with his problems?) and try to sort himself out and tell the therapist just the right amount to satisfy her while not revealing everything (anything) about himself.

“I had a lot of mates in the army,” John started, and licked his lips, thinking. “We got along fantastically, and all that.”

The skull waited patiently.

“Whenever we could afford it, there was a lot of laughter, and—god, and the pranks. You know? They were great blokes to hang around with. But…”

“But?” John imagined that the skull asked it in Sherlock’s voice. He used his waiting tone, his maybe-John’s-got-it tone, his “John, take a look at this murderer’s closet and tell me what you can deduce about his girlfriend’s dog,” tone, the one he used once John was getting to saying that the girlfriend didn’t have a dog at all, it was someone else’s, this wasn’t the murderer’s closet at all.

“But even though I’m sure some of them are back by now, I still haven’t called them up.” He licked his lips again, bit down on his tongue a little as he considered his words. “At the time I knew them, I thought I knew what friendship was like. I thought, all right, so this is what it’s like to have a best mate, who you live and maybe die with. Because, you know, we saved each other. Every day.

“And I had friends when I was a kid, too, of course. I thought I had it down, knew what it was all about, this _friends_ business.”

“But?”

“I didn’t.”

The skull’s stillness was now confusion, concern.

“I don’t know what it is, but you’re something else…Sherlock,” he breathed the name out with a little shudder. Talking to the skull was one thing; actually addressing it as Sherlock was another, made this somehow more real. “I think you noticed it too, but maybe you didn’t know how amazing it was to me, if you’ve never had any close friends before.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I thought I knew how it felt to have a close friend, and then I met you, and we just _fit_. Like that. No months and months of squirming around and adjusting to one another. We were just…already there. That’s…not how it normally is.”

“Am I ever how it normally is?”

“No,” John smiled faintly, “no, never.”

John snapped out of the memory as he finally noticed a young man folding up his laundry, tucked away toward the back of the room. He headed in that direction. “Hey,” John waved, approaching the man and pulling out his notepad. John scribbled down a few notes about him—anyone here could be the murderer, and he would have to watch out for hints that they were. Even if there was nothing he could immediately identify as off, John remembered how Moriarty had so convincingly played “Jim from IT,” evading both his and Sherlock’s attention. If John could take good notes now, make good observations now, he could review them later. And he would need to remember anyone here who appeared to have been here for a while in case he ran into them again—especially if, although John dreaded to think it, the killer struck once more before he could help solve the case. The man glanced at John before returning to his work. “I was wondering if you might have seen someone in here. Probably a while ago.” The receipt had been from over half an hour before the woman died.

John decided that the man’s silence meant he was waiting for more details. “Rather small young woman with blonde hair, striped shirt, teal handbag? Quite pretty?”

The fellow shook his head. “Sorry. Don’t think so.”

“Right,” John made his way to the next person who reasonably could have been here for that long, an older woman, and asked the same.

“Not that I recall,” she answered, “but I’ve been reading most of the time, so I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask. Sorry.”

“Hm,” John nodded, “yes, okay, thank you.”

By the time he had interviewed anyone who had stood even the slightest chance of having seen the woman, most of the original customers he’d talked to were gone. If this was, in fact, the laundrette had gone to, it was a bit surprising that no one had noticed her. She seemed like the sort of woman who would stand out—at least to some of the blokes.

So maybe she wasn’t actually in here while they were. How likely was it _no one_ would have noticed her? Not even someone who was doing their laundry right beside her?

“You’d be surprised,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, smirking. John wondered if he ought to check a different laundrette, if he—“No, no, this would be the right one, and rather likely she was here before these people. It was a good deduction, John.”  
John smiled a bit to himself. It wasn’t a real compliment from Sherlock, of course, when this Sherlock was all in his head. Really, he was just patting himself on the back and trying to make himself feel better, no matter how much it seemed like Sherlock-over-his-shoulder had a mind of his own.

 _Some of those people must’ve been here for a couple of hours at least,_ John thought, _based on how much laundry they had._ So if anyone had drugged her here, or anytime before, it would have to be something slow-acting—interesting. Of course, she also could have been drugged somewhere between here and Tesco, or even between Tesco and where she’d collapsed, but John would have no way of knowing where. He didn’t even have Mycroft to go to for access to the CCTV, even if the idea of finding him sounded the slightest bit appealing—which it didn’t. Mycroft wasn’t even done with school at this time, John supposed, wasn’t even in university, so he certainly wouldn’t be any help. Well, John could at least have another look around the laundrette for any other physical clues. He wasn’t holding out for much—what would he find, a needle in the trash? The trash, though—that was a good place to start.

John wished that he kept a pair of gloves on him, but instead he would just have to be cautious. The last thing he needed right now was to be taken to hospital—or, well, die of whatever had killed the young woman.

Right: some socks, apparently newly discovered to have been full of holes, about six receipts, a banana peel, an apple core, more dryer sheets than he particularly cared to separate and count, piles of lint, an empty baggie, half-eaten granola bar, another pair of socks, gum wrapper, gum wrapper, gum package, gum, gum, gum. Papers, looked like notes about literature. John could think up half a dozen ways most of these things could be important, and about a hundred ways they were just a bunch of rubbish of no relevance to the case whatsoever.

He oughtn’t take any of it—in case the police came by and found that any of it was important evidence. They’d seen more of the previous crime scenes than John had; they’d know what to look for. John took down some notes, an inventory of the bin’s contents, just to be safe.

If the drug—if that’s what it was—was administered a long time before she died, it could explain why the others all died at home. The murderer gave them the poison in the afternoon or evening, they went through their day, and they finally collapsed once they’d gotten back home later. _Clever,_ thought John.

“Isn’t it?” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, beaming. John sighed and tilted his head back in exasperation—okay, yes, maybe his mind had strayed into the realm of just a little too much like Sherlock for that moment. “But isn’t it, John? Isn’t it clever?” John sighed. It was. _If that’s what really happened._ It was also possible she was drugged more recently, which would mean that wherever the other victims were found dead, it was probably very near where the killer had administered the drug.

John scanned the floor and equipment for more clues. Next he’d have to go to whatever library was nearest by and see if he could find anything more about the previous victims. Chance were, just that information alone wouldn’t be enough; John braced himself with the idea that he might actually have to break into the previous victims’ places of residence, if they hadn’t already been cleaned up and occupied by someone else. Sherlock did things like that all the time—he could, too. He’d just have to…not get caught. It would all be worth it if he could help catch the killer. Of course, the police had thought these to be suicides, there was no telling how differently they could have treated the scene. Would they have investigated the homes less? Surely if they had found what poison had been used they also would have looked for where it had come from. John would just have to find out—and that would require someplace he could look up old newspapers. To the library it was, then.

 

***

 

The nearest library, thankfully, required only a bit of a walk rather than a taxi ride. John was fairly certain he had at least some money of the proper year if he _had_ to take a cab, but since he couldn’t be sure how long it would take him to solve this case (or for the police to solve it), he’d prefer to save what he had for food.

Not so long ago John had been used to going longer than he wanted to without eating; perhaps he would hold out until tomorrow morning before he grabbed a bite. It would have to be something filling, with as much nutrition as possible, but would have to be cheap more than anything else. Hunger was a familiar enough thing; there had also been the occasional case he and Sherlock had taken that involved a stakeout. Sherlock, of course, being Sherlock, only bemoaned the waiting because it was _boring_. John was _hungry_ , if they stayed in the same place for hours on end, as they sometimes did. He didn’t mind it so much; usually afterward Sherlock took pity on him—John, the poor ordinary human with an ordinary need to, oh, _eat_ —and insisted they go out for one of John’s favorites, or else bring it home and lounge about watching bad telly while eating it.

Sherlock didn’t insist on the bad telly, but he seemed to accept it as part of the deal. John knew that Sherlock would never want to admit to how much he enjoyed poking holes in every aspect of a show just to impress John with his knowledge. Sometimes, John would put on a medical drama so that _he_ could point out the flaws, which Sherlock seemed to enjoy most of all—as bad telly went, anyway.

The most recent several editions of the _Evening Standard_ were easily located, but, of course, John hadn’t expected to find anything in those. While he had never been much for computers, John did particularly miss the internet at this moment. He wondered how Sherlock would dart about solving cases at the rate he did without a smartphone to consult. This was 1984, though, and so John was resigned to a much more thorough and deliberate search through the microfilm copies of the older editions of the newspaper. He took note of any mentions of suicides that seemed to indicate the use of poison, especially any that seemed to be accidental or particularly unexpected, and a pattern began to emerge.

 _Young women_ , thought John, reviewing his notes for any of the mysterious drug-induced deaths over the past ten months. There had been five of them that seemed to definitely fit the pattern, so if John hadn’t missed any, today would be the sixth. Maybe there were some that had happened earlier—but the way the reports had been phrased in the newspaper suggested that he’d found all of them; the first one was described as an enigma, was allotted more attention than any of the later ones. The timing seemed sporadic—sometimes months and months between the deaths, sometimes only a week. The latest one had only been a week before this one, which John hoped meant that he had a while before the next. The reports indicated that the poison was probably derived from or related to belladonna.

John checked the clock—oh. It was getting toward the evening; he ought to think about where he wanted to stay for the night. Sleeping beside the time machine would probably be best, and he had been fine resting there before. Really, he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Well, it would probably take him a while to walk back; he should start at it now. These notes were a good place to start. John found a copy of the phone book in the library and searched for the addresses of the victims, copying those down in his notebook on the page after the physical description of today’s victim. He could check those places tomorrow, assuming they hadn’t been cleared out. Maybe they would all share some common quality, some piece of evidence of where the poison had come from or who had administered it. If they had all gotten it from the same place, John could check whether the woman who’d died today had been there, too.

“Good,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “Now you’re thinking.”

Today, though, it was much too late to start with that, especially if John wanted to walk to as many of the victims’ homes as possible, rather than take a cab. A glance over the addresses, though, told John that it would not be completely unavoidable. For now he would walk back to Mummy Holmes’ garden, sort out how much money he had available, and get some rest.

 

***

 

John must have walked more briskly than he’d thought, for by the time John was nearing the Holmes residence, it was still too early to go to sleep. He opted to take a bit of a walk around the neighborhood to pass the time—loitering around the garden anywhere but where his time machine was seemed risky, and it had been a while since John had properly enjoyed a sunset, anyway. A chill came with the evening, but since John had left from the nighttime in February anyway, he found he was still comfortable in his jumper and jacket. Some small satisfaction came with breathing the cooling air while his legs ached with tiredness beneath him.

John made it out to where he had threatened the sixth form kids that had bullied Sherlock before he looped around in a different direction. From this point in time, 1984, there were still a lot of rough years ahead of Sherlock. John doubted that anything that he did could stop that; Sherlock was still brilliant and still a complete arsehole and if Sherlock ever learned when to shut up for his own good, well, he wouldn’t be Sherlock anymore. Still, perhaps John’s actions would help a little.

John’s path took him near a school that Sherlock could have attended—or so John figured, given its proximity to his house, although it was equally likely Mummy Holmes sent him elsewhere. Now, in the evening, the playground was empty. Nearby, a rabbit ran through some tall grass. Well, maybe not a rabbit. It was quick, but definitely too big to be a rabbit. A fawn, maybe? Were there deer wandering around in this part of London? No, wait—there was something poking above the grass. If it was a fawn, it was the darkest, curliest fawn John had ever seen. No, it was definitely a kid. It was definitely…Sherlock? Could it be? He was in the right area…Sherlock would be…what, six? John felt sure it was him.

Of course, that meant a new array of questions—if it was, should he leave now? What if Sherlock spotted him? What if he already had? But he had so wanted to—to comfort Sherlock, somehow. To tell him everything would be okay, in whatever vague, obscure way he could manage. Sherlock had an excellent memory, John thought—but certainly, this young and with no prior recollection of John’s voice or anything else, he would just delete a random stranger. Surely Sherlock had always deleted things, John told himself—or else he would start doing it sooner or later, which was all the same so long as John didn’t show up and let Sherlock see or hear him again in the meantime. He could do that—he could avoid seeing Sherlock again between now and when he had seen him about ten years from now. Ten years was a long time and Sherlock was young; even if Sherlock didn’t delete things, he’d probably forget. John was safe to talk to him and be remembered as nothing more than a nameless, faceless person who happened by one day and said some nice things. “Hello?” he called out.

The movement stopped, and John could no longer find the little head of hair. John looked around: no one else here. He didn’t want to imagine what sort of a person an angry Mummy Holmes would be, if she were around and thought that John was some sort of…pervert, or something. He set off into the tall grass, in the direction he’d seen the kid. Well, of course, this might not even be Sherlock. If it was, though, maybe John could appeal to his need to show off. “Uh, I’m a bit lost,” he called out. “Do you know your way around here?”

Silence. John continued toward where he thought the child might be.

“Leave me alone,” came a little squeak from near his foot. John leaned down to part some of the grass and found—oh god, it was, it was. A small, scared Sherlock, huddled up hidden in the vegetation. John noted a jar and a net nearby, as well as a little blue backpack. A tremble worked its way up his spine as he tried to grasp the realness of the situation, that he was really here, seeing and soon to be _talking to_ a young Sherlock—crouched down in a grassy patch near a school, the setting and the air and the time of day so mundane as he reached back and touched something, spoke with someone, _spoke with Sherlock_ , from twenty-eight years ago. It wasn’t a movie or a play or a daydream or a nightmare. God, it was real. He could touch Sherlock’s hand and it would be real—but he wouldn’t do that. Of course. He was a stranger to Sherlock.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” John backed away a little, in the hopes it would reassure the boy. “Is that what you thought? Is that why you hid?”

“I thought you were one of the big kids,” Sherlock admitted, climbing back to his feet. “Sometimes they bother me.”

“Bother you? Bother you how?”

Sherlock gave John a dubious look, clearly trying to decipher his motive. “They kick my stuff.”

“Just your stuff, though?”

The child frowned. “I don’t like when they kick my stuff. It’s important,” he insisted, the high pitch of his young voice making his tone no less pompous.

“So…”

“So I don’t let them.” John’s brow creased as he tried to make out the meaning of Sherlock’s words, and little Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I jump on top of it so they can’t get it.” He glanced down at his backpack.

“So they kick you instead.” John thought of the older kids shoving Sherlock to the ground and kicking him. Perhaps even then Sherlock had tried to curl around something—some precious experiment in his bag, or his violin, or whatever he had been carrying with him.

Sherlock seemed loathe to admit it, but he looked John in the eye while he did so. “Sometimes.”

“Oh,” John said, fighting the impulse to ask their addresses or take the next few weeks to act as Sherlock’s bodyguard or teach Sherlock where to pinch someone to make it hurt the most and still have an elbow free to bash their nose in. “What are you protecting?”

Sherlock’s eyes snapped to John. “Experiments. And samples.” He considered. “Sometimes projects from school. Mine are the best ones in the class so they want to ruin them.”

Oh. “What kinds of experiments?” Talking about that would get Sherlock onto a happier track, and probably distract him. And Sherlock needed to know that he was doing a good thing by learning the way he was—not that John was terribly chuffed with having body parts around the flat, but it _did_ help Sherlock solve his cases, and that was what mattered. Sherlock’s research mattered. “They must be important for you to protect them like that.”

“They are,” Sherlock leaned forward earnestly. “Our class’ pet mouse died and I got it after Missus Ivers threw it away, so now I’m making notes about how dead mice look after each day so if I ever find one again I can tell how long it’s been there! Of course it would be messed up if somebody threw my backpack around,” Sherlock noted, “it would fall to pieces. It’s very fragile right now.”

“May I see?”

John had hardly blinked before Sherlock had pulled it out and held it up to him, sealed in a small jam jar. Obligingly, John took it and rotated it around. “How old is it?”

“Nine days.”

John nodded and handed it back. “You know, though, you might find a dead mouse that’s been sitting out in the rain or something for nine days, and it would look quite different from this one.” It was the sort of thing Sherlock would test.

“Oh! Yes! I’ll do that when the next class mouse dies!” Sherlock grinned. “I could keep it in a jar with some water in the bottom, like it’s been sitting in a puddle. And mist it every day, as if it were raining or foggy!”

“Lots of variables to consider,” John smiled, and tried not to think of Sherlock eagerly awaiting the death of the class pet.

Sherlock was practically beaming. “Yes! Exactly! You can see why I don’t want my experiments being jostled around. They’re important.”

“They are,” John agreed. John leaned down. “Do you want me to teach you how you can keep them away? The kids that always try to throw your stuff about?”

“You mean hurt them?”

“Well…” Yes. Very much yes. Hurt the living daylights out of whoever decided it was okay to hurt Sherlock. John’s chest swelled at the thought, at the idea of protecting Sherlock. He had done it so many times before, in the time he was supposed to come from—he would do it a thousand times again in the past, if he could, but he couldn’t. Or Sherlock could learn where to hurt those bastards who hurt him, and think of John every time he pinched a nerve. _No, no, go back, erase, delete,_ John thought. _He can’t remember me as anything other than a stranger who chatted with him for a while._

Sherlock seemed to be considering it. “I don’t think so.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, looking over John as he appeared to consider something. “If you care so much,” his voice spoke of so much disbelief, of probably already a year’s worth of visits to the school nurse and the counselor and the principal to no avail, “won’t you just do it for me?”

“Well, I don’t live here,” John smiled. “I don’t think I can just follow you around and beat up everybody who tries to bully you.” Oh god, though he wanted to. “And usually it looks pretty bad when an adult attacks a child.”

“Oh. Yes,” Sherlock nodded, taking a few steps away and reaching for his insect jar. He was apparently more confident now that he had decided John was somebody to be trusted, and his posture loosened. As Sherlock paced a few steps closer, John recognized the careless swinging of limbs that would become Sherlock heaving himself onto the sofa at 221B with a degree of petulance that would be more appropriate to him here and now, at six years old. “And I guess once I’m grown up enough that it’s not _kids_ picking on me anymore you’d be too _old_ to beat people up.”

John laughed. Oh god, but if he opened up his mouth now he’d give everything away. He waited for the impulse to subside.

“And I won’t need anybody by then. I’ll be able to take care of myself.”

“Mm,” John pretended to think about this. “I think everybody needs somebody.”

“Why? Who protects _you_?”

“A friend.” _Well, up until—but before then—_

“Is that what friends are for? To protect you?”

“No—well, yes, that’s what friends _do_ , but that’s not what they’re _for_.” John felt his legs aching, so he took a seat in the grass. “When you have a friend, a really good friend, you just…want to protect him. You get this feeling that you _need_ to. You’ll see.”

“I don’t have friends.” John opened up his mouth, but Sherlock pressed on with, “And _don’t_ say Thomas is my friend, he only acted nice because he wanted me to help him find his markers. He’s back to ignoring me now he’s got them back. Did Mummy send you here to convince me that I have friends?”

“Nobody sent me here.” _Not true: You sent me here, Sherlock, in a way._ “I don’t even know your mother.” _I just use her garden for a landing pad for a time machine, is all._

“Oh.”

“I just…well, you _will_ have friends, all right? Even if you don’t right now.”

“I’m too clever to have friends. ‘Nobody likes a smart-aleck,’ that’s what Mummy always says.”

“I don’t know; I think I’d be friends with you.”

“Of course you’d say that. You aren’t going to stay, so you don’t have to prove it.”

“All right, yes, that’s true. You’re too clever for me.” John held his hands up in mock surrender. “But look,” he leaned in conspiratorially, “if I could, I would prove it. All those prats who give you a hard time for being so smart, they’re not what matter.”

“I know.”

“You always matter to somebody, okay?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Again, of course you’d say that. No way to prove it.” John wished he could, wondered if there was _something_ he could say that was more than just vague advice. Sherlock tossed the jar back and forth between his hands. “And I hope you’re not counting Mycroft.”

John reached forward and took the jar, observing its contents. Several insects inhabited the jar, accompanied by some vegetation from the area. “Mycroft? Who’s that?” He hoped he sounded somewhere in the range of genuinely confused or mildly interested.

“My brother.”

“Oh? I suppose I ought to ask your name, too. If you’d like to tell me it. Or you can make one up. Just so I have something to call you while we talk.” He definitely didn’t want to seem—creepy. Not that Sherlock would probably notice.

Sherlock considered this. “Sherlock. That’s my real name, not a fake one.”

“Sherlock,” John repeated, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not make it feel foreign to his tongue. It never had, really. It rolled into his speech naturally, like he had reserved a spot for it earlier and just didn’t know it, like it skipped the being-new stage and was overgrown with moss from the moment John first used it. Young Sherlock’s wide eyes stuck to John’s at the sound of it, as if it came from John’s mouth magnetic. “I like that,” John said, “Sherlock.” John’s own name came easily enough to Sherlock, too, thought John, to Sherlock’s credit. Sherlock had always presupposed John’s name into his vocabulary, stole it and used it like it was never John’s to start with.

“That’s not what people normally say.”

John couldn’t hold back a smile. “And what do people normally say?”

“‘That’s a weird name. Pronounce it again?’” Sherlock frowned. “And yours?”

His was significantly less memorable. “Rather more dull, I’m afraid. I’m John.”

“Oh. All right.” Sherlock, now distracted, and grabbed for his net. His gaze was set on something a few feet away—presumably some sort of insect.

“Look, um, Sherlock.” John fidgeted. Sherlock raised himself onto the balls of his feet, crouching and waiting like a cat, and did not acknowledge John. “Just…uh…” He couldn’t say anything too personal; Sherlock would definitely remember that, and possibly turn him in to the police, if he knew what was good for him (he obviously didn’t, but John wasn’t about to risk it). John would have to run off and stop working on catching the serial killer, and let god-knows-how-many other people die as a result, and Sherlock would _definitely_ recognize John if he saw him again. “It’s…it’s gonna be…all right.”

Sherlock leapt for the insect, net stretched out before him. “Damn,” he muttered, and John cracked a smile. Then Sherlock turned to John. “And you would know, I suppose?”

“Huh?”

“Giving away generic advice even though you don’t know anything about me. Like a fortune teller. Or my teachers. It’s easy to say that it will all be fine, but how do you know? You don’t.” One corner of Sherlock’s mouth turned down, and his gaze conveyed clear disappointment. _Oh,_ John thought, _you think I’m just like your teachers and whoever else in your life has been unhelpful in god knows how many ways. The life of a genius is a tough one, eh?_ He was at a loss for what to say, and pretended to study the contents of Sherlock’s jar again. John wished he could tell Sherlock otherwise, tell him that he knew, really knew. Little Sherlock would probably be fascinated with the idea of a time machine. John envisioned him comparing every science fiction novel in the library against John’s version of how time travel worked, or maybe reading up on the latest physics developments to see if it seemed like it would really be possible by John’s time, or maybe latching onto John’s leg and making John take him along to the future.

“’Lo, Sherlock,” he’d say to his flatmate, after killing Moriarty. “I’m from the future, where things are awful, but that doesn’t matter anymore, because Moriarty is dead. Look, I brought you to see you. Can you tell yourself that everything will turn out all right?”

But of course that couldn’t happen, John thought. Right here, it was just him trying to remain a stranger, and little Sherlock without someone to properly hold his hand as he tried to decipher what was going on in his mind, what made him so different, so special.

“I’m not a fortune teller,” John laughed. “Just, you know, a…a bloke who has a pretty good idea of what’s going on. I’m not trying to say life is rainbows and butterflies, or that it should be.” Sherlock seemed to find this satisfactory. John did, too. If life was rainbows and butterflies his hand would never stop shaking and his leg would never stop hurting. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have had either of those problems in the first place, were the world rainbows and butterflies. He would just be an incomplete person and not know it, strutting around playing rugby and doing surgery and flirting with pretty girls with a big gaping hole in his insides that was meant to be filled with danger and Sherlock (which were generally one and the same, anyway). “Just…hold on when it gets bad, and it’ll get better.”

“Where are you from?” Sherlock asked. He seemed resigned to the idea that he wasn’t going to catch any more insects, and stuffed the jar into his backpack.

“Why do you ask?”

“You said you’re not from here. And you…” Sherlock paused. “Well, I was just wondering.”

“And I what?”

“And you’re wearing a weird kind of jacket I’ve never seen, and you have a funny device in your pocket.” John looked down. _Shit._ His mobile was slipping out. He tried to push it back in as casually as possible. “So where are you from?”

“Uh…” Should he just make someplace up? Surely Sherlock wouldn’t be able to tell whether he was lying, or come up with some reason he couldn’t possibly be from wherever he decided on…then again, maybe something closer to the truth was better. _Just keep it vague._ “About halfway across London, to the…north.”

“Oh.” Sherlock seemed unsatisfied with the answer, but, thankfully for John, seemed to become distracted, deep in thought about whatever was on his mind. After a brief glance at his surroundings, Sherlock dug through his backpack and pulled out a notebook.

“What’s that?”

“My field notes. I’m writing about what I found today,” Sherlock said, scribbling something into the book.

“Field notes, huh? That’s pretty serious stuff for someone your age.”

“I’m _six_ ,” Sherlock huffed indignantly.

“Ah, of course. And, my sources tell me, a bit too clever for your own good.”

“Your sources?”

“Well. You.”

Sherlock smirked, and John couldn’t keep himself from smiling back. There they were, now just as always: two idiots grinning at one another over something stupid while none of the rest of the world cared or understood. _See, little Sherlock,_ John thought, _this is what friends are like. See, I care. Somebody cares. All the time._ If it were physically possible for John to stay conscious during one of his journeys through time, he would think about Sherlock the whole way, just so he could argue how true that was, that _all the time_ bit. _See? It will worry me so much if something happens to you. Don’t hurt yourself._

“What are you doing out here, anyway?” John asked.

“Collecting samples.”

“And what experiment is this for?”

“I think Mycroft is trying to poison me. I’m looking for what’s poisonous out here.”

“I don’t think your brother is trying to poison you. Brothers don’t do that.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Have you ever read a history book?”

“Okay, but,” John started, and then sighed. This was probably a hopeless track of conversation. “Well. Found anything?”

“Not yet. I haven’t made it all the way through here, though. There are also some berries near our house that I haven’t looked at much. Mycroft could easily sneak them into a pie, which I’m sure he’ll be making eventually.”

“Have you found poison in your food before, or something?” John humored him.

“Not yet,” he repeated. “But he keeps cooking. Usually Mummy cooks. I don’t know why Mycroft is doing it. It must be something bad. Last night he made my favorite food.” Sherlock shuddered.

“What’s that?” John asked. He honestly had no idea—Sherlock hardly ever expressed an opinion over food. He suspected Chinese or Thai, since that was their most frequent fallback for takeout, but the more John thought about it, the more likely he found it that Sherlock ordered that because John liked it. Sherlock, after all, usually only picked at his order, and left most of it for leftovers for John to eat the next day. John had tried to do something about it, but he picked his battles carefully. He couldn’t get Sherlock to eat _every_ day, heaven forbid. Anyway, little Sherlock probably had slightly less refined taste than his older self. John remembered a time when he had loathed broccoli. And peppers, how had he ever hated peppers?

“Apple crumble,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly. 

“Obviously,” they both said, John notably more sarcastically than Sherlock. They grinned again.

“Right, well,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. “I’d better…get going.” Christ, he should, but he didn’t _want_ to. 

“You said you were lost.”

John clung to the excuse. Right, of course. He was lost. Got to stick to that. “Oh. Er. Right.”

“Do you want me to show you to one of the main roads? My school is close by.”

John considered it. He’d already had quite a lot of conversation with Sherlock—whether that alone was enough to make him memorable, he wasn’t sure. Still, the Sherlock he knew was easily distracted when it came to his work. John remembered being left behind at the crime scene the first time he had gone with Sherlock—“The Work” took precedent over everything. “Okay,” John finally decided. He could distract Sherlock with conversations about his projects, places and things they were passing as they walked. He couldn’t…he couldn’t let go yet. This would be his only chance to talk to Sherlock like this. And anyway…this was probably the last he would see of such a kind, polite Sherlock, and he wanted to savor it. And possibly encourage it. Just a little. He could oblige Sherlock in his considerate request and enjoy it along the way; wouldn’t want to seem ungrateful. Sherlock should know that he’d be appreciated for doing good things. “Sure. Unless—will I be stopping you from gathering your samples?”

“I got what I need,” Sherlock said, packing up the last of his supplies.

“What are the bugs for?”

“Insects,” Sherlock corrected, swinging his backpack onto his shoulders. “Testing the poisons. Of course it’s not the best way, there are lots of things that would poison people but not insects, but it’s hard to find people to—”

John felt panic swell over him. He turned to face Sherlock, and when their eyes locked John said as gently as he could manage, “Not good, Sherlock.”

Sherlock seemed frozen for a moment, staring at John. John wondered if he was trying to process it, process what John meant. “Oh. Yes. Okay.” He watched John, seemed to be expecting more. “I know I’m supposed to know that. It’s just…”

“It’s fine,” John soothed. _You’re okay, who you are is okay._ Some things about Sherlock were troublesome, but if Sherlock had—had jumped—because of John trying to change him, well, he wouldn’t. Especially not this early. “Some people have a sense for that sort of thing, and some people don’t.”

“The people who don’t are called psychopaths,” Sherlock sounded sour.

“You’re not a psychopath,” John walked to the sidewalk and waited for Sherlock to begin leading the way.

“How do you know?” Sherlock started along the sidewalk, and John followed.

John sighed. “I’ve met one or two in my time.” Or three or four, or twenty-eight or twenty-nine, depending on one’s definition of “met.”

“Interesting,” said Sherlock.

“I’m sure if you do your research and really think about it you’ll reach the same conclusion as me.”

“‘As _I_ ,’” Sherlock corrected. “Okay.”

“Anyway, since I’m a bit…off from my, uh, normal route, I was hoping you could tell me about this area.”

“What about it?”

“You know, the buildings, the…I dunno, the plants, or…if anything interesting happened around here…”

“Oh!” Sherlock nodded. “Yes.” He strutted along the sidewalk, eyes scanning the area in front of him for ideas for where to start. “Well, I’ve been looking at the plants here a lot. They’re mostly native species but the school takes care of some that aren’t. You would think that they would try to keep poisonous plants far away from school grounds, but there are actually four plant species close to the school that are poisonous that I’ve found so far.”

“Oh?”

“There are buttercups, for one. You could eat enough of those to kill yourself if you really wanted to, or if you were really stupid, but they taste awful, so I guess they figure we won’t. Those hedges over there are cherry laurel.”

“Shame on whoever put those so near a school,” John frowned, and held back from warning Sherlock against them. He obviously already _knew_ they were poisonous. He probably knew why, too.

“There are some potatoes growing wild near where we were.”

“What’s in potatoes?”

“Well, if they’ve sprouted, or if they’ve been sitting out in sunlight or decayed, they grow toxic. You can look for green areas. It’s not really a problem if they’re cooked, though. I read that the poison is related to _Atropa belladonna_. Nightshade.”

John quirked an eyebrow. “Is it?” Of course the murderer wouldn’t be feeding his victims rotten potatoes, and certainly not in a laundrette or a Tesco. Still, it was something to consider. This sort of stuff was just growing all over the place.

“Yes. Which leads me to the last one; I think there is some nightshade growing here too.”

“You mentioned berries before.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Maybe you should, I dunno, tell someone at your school about this.”

Sherlock shrugged. “It hasn’t killed anyone while I’ve been there.”

“Right.” Okay, well, true enough. It would probably take someone getting hurt before there were any changes, anyway, and that’s not what he was here to do.

They came to a corner and stopped; John took it they would be crossing the street here. Sherlock faced toward the other side of the street and waited.  
“This way?” John came up beside him and motioned across.

“Yes. But we have to cross it.”

“Yeah, well, ehm—let’s—look both ways,” John smiled a little. Sherlock was, after all, still a child.

“Mummy makes me hold her hand.”

“Oh.” Yes, he was still at that age, wasn’t he?

“I can _tell_ when I can cross,” Sherlock huffed. John relived visions of countless instances of Sherlock leaping in front of traffic. Definitely a bad habit, rather than simply safety never learned. Sherlock hesitated. “But…”

“But?”

“I like having somebody walk near me.”

John smiled. “Oh, you want to use me as a human shield, eh? I see.”

Sherlock laughed.

“Well, here, you can take my hand if you want,” John held his out. “Not because you don’t know what you’re doing, but just, you know. If you’d like it. Your choice.”

Sherlock grabbed it and John marveled at how small it was. In years, of course, Sherlock would be tall and have those long, thin violin fingers. Right now Sherlock’s right hand fit so neatly inside John’s left. John’s longer paces only just made up for Sherlock’s quickened steps as they crossed. “Over here is the dentist’s. Mycroft had to get two cavities filled three weeks ago. It’s because he eats so many sweets.”

John couldn’t suppress a grin. As they got to the other side of the street, his grip loosened, but Sherlock’s hand remained on his as he maintained his quick walk and actually began leading John along, “You have to see this, it’s the restaurant Mummy took me to for my birthday last month!” He let go of John’s hand as they came to a stop in front of it.

“Was it very good?”

“It was awful!” Still, he sounded delighted. “I found a fingernail in my food, and then I saw a chef out running about, and I realized that she was doing that because she had lost the fingernail and was looking for it to apologize. And I was right!”

“Well done!”

Sherlock looked up at John and then continued to walk in front of him. “Want to hear about another one of my experiments?” he asked, marching forward and not even so much as glancing at John. John smiled. That was just about the natural order of things, at least once Sherlock got so far into talking about a case or experiment that he forgot about such silly thoughts as food or sleep or people having feelings.

“Love to.”

By the time Sherlock finally slowed down over half an hour later, John was fairly certain they had almost walked by a main road at least ten times—but Sherlock had always led him someplace else, down a narrow street or an alley or through a park—and not once had he run out of things to talk about. Sherlock barely paused speaking for more than half a second the few times he did, and looked back at John even less, only glancing back out of the corner of his eye on occasion to make sure he hadn’t lost John, or to make sure he was still paying attention. John, for his part, remained fairly silent, responding only when prompted or when Sherlock seemed to expect a reaction—Sherlock was content to speak, and John was content to help make sure his voice wasn’t remembered so he could just fade in Sherlock’s memory as “that nice bloke who actually shut up and listened.”

John learned about the building that had been abandoned for as long as Sherlock remembered, about Sherlock’s attempts at growing flowers in the garden last summer and finding out some flowers were stupidly referred to as weeds, about how he used to want to be a pirate but had decided that that wasn’t viable and was now set on keeping bees and making honey and making sweets with honey. Sherlock had especially enjoyed John’s crack that from the sound of it, Mycroft might be a sizable portion of his market. John learned about street names and neighbors’ names and how Missus Bourke, who always carried a red bag with her, went to visit Missus Stacks, who was very tall with a very sharp nose, when Mister Bourke, whose suits didn’t fit very well, came home in a cab, stumbling around, and once Mister Bourke brought over a guest who Missus Bourke was definitely not expecting and Missus Bourke was gone for a while after that. Miss Ingham was new and had a very round face and nobody liked her landscaping but Mister Bourke must like her because he sometimes visited while Missus Bourke was still at Missus Stacks’. Mycroft’s piano tutor lived farther down the street and kept at least six types of sweets in bowls around her house and sometimes her son visited Mycroft at home. Her son was very bad at maths and Sherlock had figured out that Mycroft was helping him _cheat_ at maths but Mycroft got very mad when Sherlock said he would tell Mummy, and threw Sherlock’s field notes into the bathtub where Sherlock was trying to wash the mud out of his school uniform before Mummy found out he got it messy. John learned about the time Sherlock spilled paint on the fancy rug in the living room and Mycroft yelled at him and then Mummy pretended like that made the rug look better even though it really didn’t, which made Mycroft mad, which made Sherlock happy.

John felt like he was filling in for the skull again. He could probably turn a corner and Sherlock wouldn’t notice for four or five minutes that he was gone: just as it always had been—or, apparently, always would be. _So much for the possibility of getting him out of_ that _habit_ , John thought. He would eternally be coming home from the grocery to an indignant Sherlock frustrated with the fact that it had taken John over an hour to grab him those files from the desk for him—but that was okay, because at least he would be coming home to Sherlock.

“Here we are,” Sherlock muttered, looking out at the road. He finally glanced back up at John. “You recognize this?”

“Yes,” John said, “and I don’t think it’s half an hour away from your school, either,” he added, and smirked when Sherlock raised guilty eyes to him. “It’s no problem. Thank you for the tour. You should get home.”

“Can I borrow that notebook you have with you?”

“Oh—” John glanced down at it, poking out of his jacket pocket. “What for?”

“I want to draw you a map. In case you get lost again.”

“Oh,” John pulled it out. “Yes. Good idea.” He handed Sherlock the notebook and a pen. “Here you go. Just do it on the last page, that way I can find it easily.” _And you won’t see all my notes about possible serial killers in a laundrette._

“Thanks.” He glanced over the materials and opened the small notebook to its last page, scribbling things in earnestly. “Here,” he held it up to John, “this is where we are. This way is north. Okay? I put my house on in case you want to visit later.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” John smiled. “I’m very busy. But thanks.” Sherlock looked up at him, apparently hesitant to speak. “Do you need to cross this road, too?”

“Yes.”

“Is this the only one on your way home you need to cross?”

“Look at your map!”

“Oh! Yes. Okay. Well, how’s this: I’ll cross with you, and then we’ll say bye.”

“Okay.”

So they did.

“Can’t you walk to my house with me?” Sherlock asked as they crossed, his hand held tight in John’s.

It was so tempting—but he couldn’t give Sherlock the option of watching him after they got to that point. This way he could just go a bit out of the way, dawdle a few streets down, and then turn and take the same path as Sherlock. “Afraid not. I’m going the opposite way and I need to get back home too.”

“Okay.”

When they reached the other side, John let go of Sherlock’s hand. “Good luck with the mouse experiment,” he said. “Be safe on your way home. Yell as loud as you can if something happens to you.” He would stay close enough that he could hear—just in case.

“Okay.”

“Bye,” John turned around so that his back was toward Sherlock.

Sherlock didn’t answer. John was afraid to look back, so he marched dutifully in the direction opposite Sherlock’s home. He could do this. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t see Sherlock again. But this was—special. And he hoped he had done the right thing, struck just the right balance between getting his reassurance across to Sherlock while not being too memorable. He was a pretty generic bloke. A young Sherlock wouldn’t have piercing eyes to look back on, or some kind of majestic aura to remember him by. He didn’t even have an interesting psychosomatic limp, right now. They’d had an interesting conversation, and maybe Sherlock would remember that, remember telling some stranger about his experiments and deductions and leading him in circles for half an hour before drawing him a map, but he wouldn’t remember that _John_ was that person, not in enough detail to recognize him ten years later when he gave those bullies a talking-to, and _certainly_ not in enough detail to influence the direction of their meeting in twenty-five years.

John turned back to face Sherlock, but Sherlock was already walking home, brisk purposefulness to his step. “Okay,” John mouthed to himself, squaring his shoulders and continuing on his way.

He startled at the sight of a woman crossing the street in front of him, and chastised himself for being so jumpy. She was probably just out taking a walk, too. She wasn’t about to report John for traipsing about this tiny corner of London with a small child before sending him to walk the (admittedly short) distance home all alone. “Calm down,” he muttered to himself. The woman glanced over her shoulder, dark curls bouncing as her head shifted. John smiled politely. She smiled back. _Okay, okay. Now just walk around a bit, make sure Sherlock can’t see you, and get back to the machine and get some rest._ He would pull out his laptop tonight and use it to recharge his phone, and from there, the time machine; he guessed even then the laptop would still have some battery left. He could use his mobile as an alarm to be sure he got up to investigate at a reasonable hour. He’d do it at night, if he weren’t so damned tired…and, of course, in the daytime it was a lot easier to pretend you belonged someplace. At the next corner, John turned to go at a right angle to the woman in front of him, and she didn’t follow. Okay. Good.

He took it from the relative silence on the way back that Sherlock made it home safely, and John probably got to the time machine some twenty minutes after Sherlock got home, having taken a roundabout way so that he wouldn’t come into view of the house’s windows. By the time he got to the time machine, it was completely dark out. John had spent his walk trying to commit his entire conversation with Sherlock to memory, trying to steep his mind in it until it was permanent, until it stained his mind like rings in teacups. When he arrived, the machine was safe and sound.

And there was water sitting out.

Huh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's my doodle.](http://toasterfish.tumblr.com/post/29671589269/hm-what-no-totally-not-doodling-anything-that-i)
> 
>  
> 
> (And it is a doodle, and I know there are lots of things wrong with it. XD)  
> Incidentally, that is my Tumblr. I'd be happy to chat with you if you feel like sending an ask my way!


	7. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (VI)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I can’t believe I’m talking myself into this_ , John thought. Sherlock had licked mercury-covered wrappers to confirm his theory about the poisoned children; this was at least less dangerous than _that_. _If I’m lucky it’ll lead me to the answer, which also unfortunately means that if I’m lucky I’ll have to sit around uncomfortably horny in a phone box just in case I start hallucinating and have to get to hospital._
> 
> “Yes, wouldn’t want to hallucinate,” Sherlock-over-his-shoulder said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Yes, um, contrary to what the rather huge gap in time between the date of the last post and this one, this story is still very much alive and in progress. It’s just that because of classes and work (and the obligations of the [Mathematical Proof series](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitenomnom/series)) and my beta being equally busy (or maybe more so), things are taking longer. 
> 
> This chapter required a _lot_ of research*. Some parts less successful than others**. Also, I know he won't see it here, but I want to thank my friend Lucas for the amazing amount of time he put into helping me research for this. I can't begin to convey how helpful he's been.
> 
> Also, the lovely Sushifer has pointed out to me such things as that it ought to be “laundrette” and not “laundromat” so I am going through and fixing some of that. (But, for the record, the Ludo song Laundry Girl, which contains the lyrics that title this section of the story for a variety of reasons, refers to a laundromat. So.)
> 
> Additionally and probably most importantly, eternal thanks to Morwen for being such a patient and excellent beta.

John thanked the stars for his level head when he spotted the water sitting in what he had come to think of as its usual position under the gazebo with the time machine. He probably would have panicked otherwise, since the only explanation he could think of was—well—Mycroft or—Sherlock or—somebody else having found the machine. Sherlock hadn’t been here long enough—he couldn’t have found it after getting home just minutes ago unless he already knew exactly where to look, and John supposed that if Sherlock had seen the machine earlier in the day, he would have mentioned it to John sometime in their conversation.

            What were the chances of Mycroft finding it, though? He obviously hadn’t happened across it before—well—in the future—well—when John had talked to Mycroft, he hadn’t seen it at any point, and John doubted he’d done anything that would have changed that. Unless, of course, Mycroft was lying, which required a healthy amount of consideration. Still, he’d be young now—a teenager, John supposed—he wasn’t trying to run the world yet (probably). From what Sherlock had said, he likely barely ever strayed outside, let alone to the far, heavily planted reaches of the Holmes’ considerable back garden.

            He’d left the note on his machine about the water. So somebody had seen it, and apparently decided, for whatever reason, that it was worth their while to retrieve some water. And not only that—bottled water. That hadn’t been at the top of list of things that were on John’s mind in his youth, but it definitely hadn’t been until his uni days that he _knew_ people who drank bottled water. But he was in a posh neighborhood, and this, of course, this was the _Holmes_ residence. He could have traveled to before this time and left the water for himself, but then where would he land? And would he really have bought himself bottled water with his precious and very limited usable money? No, probably not.

            Which really only left one possibility, didn’t it? Well, one or two, but…why would Mummy Holmes have brought out expensive bottled water and left it by a strange contraption in her garden, rather than just—well—having the thing hauled away?

            Mycroft had postulated that she knew, but didn’t wish to be involved.

            Then again, Mycroft also thought that John had never spoken to young Sherlock. Well: Sherlock could be telling Mycroft about it right now, and everything would change, but John sincerely doubted that would happen. Even this young, Sherlock seemed unwilling to tell Mycroft more than he had to, perhaps for fear that Mycroft would later hold it against him.

            So, John thought, cracking one of the bottles open, Mummy Holmes (probably) left these here, having noticed the strange machine here and seen the note. She probably wasn’t stupid—Sherlock seemed to respect her far too much—so she probably had a good guess as to what the machine was for, whether she believed it worked or not. It didn’t answer why she’d actually helped out, but maybe she was just curious and wanted to encourage John to come back.

            Well, the least he could do was thank her, and hope that she continued to keep from interfering. Perhaps she had the wisdom to keep Mycroft away. John wasn’t exactly keen to meet up with her and have a chat, but he could leave a note. He could keep it vague and hope she was clever enough to get the idea.

            _Thanks. Nice gazebo._

He set out to put the note somewhere she’d find it—beneath the machine, right in the middle of the floor, and he could grab one of the nearby decorative stones and set it on top. As John walked over to the grouping of stones, he noticed a paper that wasn’t his own pinned underneath one of them, set slightly apart from the others, halfway between the other stones and the machine. _This place will remain safe for you so long as you don’t do something stupid. Hurt either of my sons and you may find yourself rather stranded, and chased down by some very curious police officers. And if you are what you appear to be: thank you. –V. Holmes_

It had to be Mummy, then, John thought. But “what he appeared to be” could be any number of things. Apparently he left a positive impression, whatever it was. How much had she deduced? Was that something she did? But how had she seen him? John glanced around the gazebo: ah. Security camera. He’d have been too dazed to notice it before, and in the later years it would’ve been more discreet, no doubt. She must have them mounted around her house—perhaps that had been an influence on Mycroft. He gave a wry smile toward the camera and then removed Mummy Holmes’ letter from beneath the rock. He took his own out to modify it. _I swear to do no such thing. Whatever else you believe about me, believe that. Thank you. –JW_

He placed the stone atop it and returned his attention to other matters, withdrawing his laptop from its case and plugging his phone in. It seemed a silly and inefficient way to go about things, but then, Andrew likely hadn’t planned on parking his time machine outside under a gazebo. Being able to plug in a mobile to charge the thing was probably intended to be a backup. And anyway, he likely hadn’t gone on a days-long adventure through his wife’s youth.

            _Days-long_. It suddenly occurred to John that he probably _reeked_ , or would soon. He couldn’t do much about the clothing while he was here—he’d have to wait until he went to a time he had more usable money to buy a change of clothes. And figure out a way to take a shower…

            Of course, he can’t have been too offensive, or else young Sherlock surely would have said something to that effect.

            Sherlock.

            There would have been no way for John to have been prepared for meeting Sherlock like that, he decided. He twisted his fingers in to rub them against his palm, taking his mind through their time together.

            He hadn’t talked with Sherlock for—well—for over eight months. Little Sherlock couldn’t have known that what he was doing had been a balm John needed so badly. Now, reflecting back on it, on Sherlock almost immediately clinging on to him, letting loose thoughts and opinions and deductions and observations, on taking his hand, on the disappointment in his eyes when they parted ways, John had to choke a knot of emotion back down his throat. The calm and nonchalance he’d maintained while he followed Sherlock snapped, and John covered his face with his hands, steadying his breathing.

            This was the sort of thing that you were supposed to merely contemplate, John thought, to muse upon and daydream about and pass time with thoughts on—not the sort of thing that was supposed to actually happen. Meeting one’s best friend as a child—being—fitting together every bit as well even under such unusual circumstances, it was more like a fairy tale than John had half-jokingly imagined earlier. He’d tell Sherlock about it, later—how profound the feeling, how their friendship seemed to swivel about nothing but them, time be damned.

          He would need more time to think about it, maybe, and he had plenty of time. For now, however, John was exhausted, and had an important case to try to solve tomorrow morning. After rotating the mobile through several more cycles of charging and then charging the machine, John set his alarm, leaned up against the time machine, and drifted off.

            When John woke to the alarm on his mobile the next morning at 7:30am, he opened another of the bottles of water and evaluated his options. He had his notes on the victims’ addresses—perhaps that was the place to start. The second most recent one—the one from last week—would be the most likely to still contain any fresh evidence, but also the most likely to be monitored by the police. With the new evidence from this latest murder—murder, not suicide, not accidental overdose, but most likely actually _murder_ —would they go back to that scene to have a look?

            He could risk checking, though—at worst he’d simply walk past the place like any other pedestrian. He’d have to take a taxi to get there in reasonable time.

            To John’s relief, no police cars were parked outside the flat. Of course, that didn’t mean there was nobody inside, or even that there weren’t any officials inside, but he’d just have to be careful. They could have come by yesterday, while John was in the library doing his research—or maybe they already had all the evidence they could glean from this place and merely had to reevaluate it given the most recent developments.

            No new nametags in the buzzer—he wouldn’t be able to use Sherlock’s “new neighbor” trick. The victim was, though, on the bottom floor… John paced around to the other side of the building. Windows—he could break into one of those. He’d seen Sherlock do it about a thousand times, and even had to resort to doing it himself on a couple of occasions (because Sherlock was a berk and, almost as if he’d planned it that way, ran off and did something stupid and forced John to choose between doing something very illegal or leaving Sherlock to his own devices—the decision was never quite as difficult as John wished it would be).

            Getting in wasn’t the difficult part, but making sure he didn’t leave any prints or evidence of his own presence might be. Granted, he’d probably be fine so long as he managed to find the murderer before somebody else found one of his hairs in a crime scene, but John wasn’t quite so full of himself as to assume that he even _would_ be able to solve the case.

            No one was around—it was just a dreary, empty, miniscule flat that was probably the best someone as young as the victim would’ve been able to afford. (Barring, John thought bemusedly of the Holmeses, rich parents.) It looked like the police had taken several things from the flat (unusual empty spot on the counter, slightly rearranged furniture based on the indents in the carpet, trash can had been searched judging by that an empty packet of frozen food was buried well beneath the tear-off top, rather than the other way around). The only way John would find anything useful here would be if the detectives had missed something, or if there was something he could conclude based on anything they didn’t take.

            If he could figure out where she’d been earlier that day, maybe he could find evidence of what had happened to her there—if his idea about the victims being drugged long before they actually died was true. He hadn’t found anything in the way of evidence about yesterday’s murder at Tesco, of course, or the laundrette…but maybe he would have better luck with this one. At least perhaps he could find out where the killer had been giving these people the drug. If it was something like a pill, it’d be tough to trace…if he could find a needle or something in the rubbish bin, it’d be much easier. But then, he’d be lucky if the killer was so sloppy.

            Of course, he couldn’t be so lucky as to find a receipt or a grocery bag again, or a bag of freshly cleaned laundry. Whoever this young woman was, she kept a clean house. Even the papers on her desk were in a perfectly neat stack, though the handwriting on them was dismal—oh, they were kids’ assignments.

            Oh: kids’ assignments. Right: she was a teacher. The article about her untimely and baffling death had mentioned the primary school she’d worked at. John consulted the notes he’d taken while reading the article: she was a teacher at one LevittPrimary School. Doubtless she spent a great deal of time there; it would be wise to investigate. A school was a large place to check, but John could look in some of the obvious places: cafeteria, teacher’s lounge, the classroom she taught in…maybe someone there had seen her talk to somebody, maybe even somebody who fit the descriptions of the laundrette patrons he’d written down. But he didn’t want to arouse suspicion wandering around looking for which classroom she’d taught in—perhaps some of her paperwork here would include that information.

 _Poor kids, though,_ John thought. _How awful would that be, to have your_ _teacher up and die on you?_ And at the time they’d thought she’d accidentally killed herself, too.

            John managed to extract a school directory from its already-open envelope on Summers’ desk without touching the envelope itself, but once it came to flipping through the pages, John decided that was good enough. Judging from the state of the place, John thought, and the fact that it was no longer marked off as a crime scene, it was so unlikely that the police would be back at all that it hardly even bore considering as a risk—even avoiding getting his prints on the envelope itself was overcautiousness. John thumbed through the booklet looking for Miss Jillie Summers’ room number. John did his best to replace the directory in the envelope without using his fingers, and shoved the last bit in with his index finger. If his investigations brought him to more crime scenes—actual, marked-with-tape crime scenes—he’d have to make a trip to the chemist’s and buy some latex gloves. Of course, the chances that any of the earlier sites were marked off if this one wasn’t was low—but if, heaven forbid, there was another murder and therefore a fresh crime scene to sneak into before John or the coppers could figure this one out, he’d need a more reliable way to keep from leaving prints all over the place.

            The school, thankfully, looked to be within reasonable walking distance of Jillie Summers’ flat. John wondered if she’d taken a taxi home that day, though—was she feeling dizzy? Hallucinating? Stumbling about like the young woman who died yesterday had apparently been doing before she died?

            John left the building as carefully as he’d entered it, and strode purposefully toward the school.

            “You’re doing well, John,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, and John flushed a little as he realized that all that really amounted to was him complimenting himself. Of course if Sherlock had actually said so, in such a genuine tone as John had imagined, he might be a few shades darker yet. John certainly couldn’t blame Sherlock for wanting to have someone to follow him around and congratulate him on a deduction well done or a crime well solved or a detail well observed. And, of course, Sherlock had been lacking just such an audience—probably for his whole life. John could piece together, at least, that he had no such admirers in his youth, and from what Sebastian Wilkes had said at the bank, none of his colleagues in university were terribly impressed, or at least not nearly as impressed as they were peeved.

            John slipped into the school building with little difficulty; straggler students were still trickling in this early, some with their parents. He thought about how fantastic it would have been to bring little Sherlock along with him to solve the rest of this case—but, of course, if he taught Sherlock his own methods (and probably poorly, John thought), space-time would collapse, or something. At the very least, Sherlock would _definitely_ remember John.

            “I know you were thinking of checking the teacher’s lounge,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, who, for all John’s musing, was no longer over his shoulder at all, but rather his six-year-old self, “but think about it: unless the murderer was a teacher, he’d stick out there. He was trying to be _discreet_ with his delivery of the drug.”

            _Right_ , John thought. Any of the other teachers would remember a stranger bursting in and doing whatever-he-did to get the drug in the victim’s system; that would only work if the Summers was in the lounge alone, and the killer was sure no one else would enter. Less than likely. Still… _What about the case with the cabbie? Same sort of thing—stranger poisoning his victims, leaving the poisonings to look like suicides… We didn’t think of the cabbie because—well—nobody does._

“Could be the janitorial staff,” little Sherlock agreed.

_The sweet but anonymous housekeeping bloke who brought in more coffee and an apple for the teacher. Nobody would remember if they’d seen him before or since._

               “Can you get into that room with the same trick? You could check around.”

               _Doubt I could pretend to be a teacher—this place is small enough for them all to know each other—and I think I’d have to find some sort of uniform to pass as cleaning or cooking staff._

               “The killer would’ve had that problem, too.”

            _Well, yeah, but he had all the time in the world, didn’t he?_ John glanced to his left and turned down that hall. “And he could use the same disguise anywhere in the school, really, for the same reason. Not just the lounge. Better check the places I can actually go into without a disguise first.” He glanced into a pair of wide doors: the cafeteria.

“The cafeteria would be more inconspicuous than the lounge, but there’s a problem with that, too,” little Sherlock said.

            _Too frequently cleaned,_ John agreed. _Any evidence would be gone, and doubtful any of the cooks will have seen anything—or would remember it, if they did._

            “Exactly,” said Sherlock-not-over-John’s-shoulder, and he grabbed John’s hand as they continued down the hallway in the direction in which John supposed room 143 would be. John wondered what it meant, that his brain was cooking this up without asking him about it. Was it weird? Yes—yeah, it was definitely weird.

            Sherlock-holding-John’s-hand was replaced by the original, back over his shoulder, no longer holding his hand. “Better?”

            “I’m going mental,” John muttered to himself.

            “Talking to yourself,” Sherlock tutted. “You’re not _going_ mental, John; you’re already there.”

            _Thanks_.

            John paused in front of the door. The lights were off. He jiggled the handle and found it unlocked—likely the students and their new teacher were at assembly. He didn’t have long, then, or at least didn’t want to assume that he would, and so flipped the light on as he hurried in. The classroom’s rubbish bin probably would have been emptied at least once in the past week, so that was useless…John would just have to look about for anything that stuck out to him. He took out his mobile and started up the camera, just in case he had to take any quick photos to review later. The students, of course, had a new teacher. The desk probably hadn’t been entirely cleaned and overturned since the murder, but John couldn’t be sure if anything on it had belonged to Summers, except the few things that were in her handwriting—a lesson schedule, a seating arrangement.

            Posted around the classroom were sheets of blank paper—odd. Oh, wait, no, it wasn’t that it was blank—it was covered in a very light green paint. “You know what this is,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. John paced back over to the lights to test his theory—sure enough, each piece was a glowing drawing of…monsters or…stars or…something. _Huh, glow-in-the-dark paint,_ John thought, smirking a little as images of glowing rabbits named Bluebell came to mind. Of course, whether Baskerville was the center for mad scientists now that it was in 2011 or not, there wouldn’t be any glowing rabbits or glowing hounds or glowing anything there now—unless they were keeping it secret, John was fairly certain glowing animals hadn’t been invented yet.

            He was at a loss for what to search for—the means of administering the poison? John scanned the room. Of course if there’d been anything terribly obvious somebody would have found it—a curious child, if nothing else. And he was fairly certain something would have been printed in the news if a child in Summers’ class also fell ill or died around the same time and of the same cause, so—nothing a child would find noteworthy, and especially nothing a child would find and poke himself with, or eat, or whatever. Unless, of course, it wasn’t something that was obviously a method of delivering poison—not a pill or a needle. It probably would have to be something subtler, or else how would the killer get the poison into the victims without being noticed?

            John snapped a few photos of the classroom just in case, so he could look over them later. By the time he got to the corner by the window, he was trying to decide whether there was some way the teacher could have poked her thumb with a poisoned _thumbtack_. But maybe that was too much like the sanitized cat in the Raoul de Santos case: too much left to chance. If the killer was going after attractive young women, would he risk a child being drugged instead? He didn’t seem to have made any glaring mistakes so far, and this had been his fifth murder, almost ten months after the first, so he probably knew what he was doing by now. If a child received the dosage of poison he’d been giving to adults, he would have died much more quickly and caught attention that the murderer had obviously avoided up until yesterday.

            What, then? It had to be something given to her directly, that the children wouldn’t have access to, or wouldn’t have reason to—touch, or, eat, or—

            Oh, _Christ_. Somebody really ought to change the class pet’s bedding, John thought, cringing at the smell of it. What was that, a hamster? Oh, a mouse—John smiled fondly at being reminded of little Sherlock’s experiment.

            Ah, _that_ was why it smelled so awful—the thing was dead. Curled up inside its hidey-hole, peacefully sleeping by all appearances, or—well—by just a glance, but with a closer look, John decided that the thing looked markedly more like Sherlock’s nine-days-old mouse than a live, sleeping one. Of course, with Summers’ death, the poor thing had probably been forgotten, and its cage was tucked far enough back in the corner, and near enough some sort of lilies that had also probably been beautiful at one point but were now looking much worse for the wear, that the smell wasn’t obvious until one was right beside the cage.

            But if it looked like a nine-days-dead mouse, then it had to have died sometime around nine days ago—which was odd, because it probably meant it died right around when Summers had. It wasn’t for lack of food or water, John observed—the class pet had a full dish of little pellets, and even the core of an apple that definitely hadn’t been put in recently—

            John paused and flipped back through his laundrette notes.

            _No, no, that’s ridiculous. Just because there was an apple there, and there’s an apple and a dead mouse here, doesn’t mean this is some sort of poisoned-apple fairytale._

“It _is_ possible,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “Discreet—easy to give to someone. Particularly easy to offer to a pretty young teacher.”

            _Or a lovely lady you chatted up while doing your laundry_ , John thought. _But it’s only_ one _explanation of_ some _of the facts, isn’t it, Sherlock?_

“True enough. You could find another animal to test the apple on.”

            _Rather not, thanks_ , John thought, and scolded himself for thinking through this right _now_. The children and their teacher would be back from assembly any minute. John snapped a quick photo of the mouse’s enclosure and carefully extracted the brown and shriveled core. If a dead mouse had gone unnoticed for a week, the apple core definitely wouldn’t be missed, and it was so unlikely that the police would come here, of all places, and notice the mouse, of all things, and miss out on solving the crime because John had taken the core. It probably wasn’t even the slightest bit important—but possible enough to be worth checking into. Ugh—this was about the last thing he wanted to be carrying about right now. If he was going to have it on himself for much longer, or was going back to get the apple from the laundrette, he’d definitely be getting some plastic bags. _Latex gloves and plastic bags._ Maybe he should start writing a list.

            He dodged past desks and one very precariously placed toothpick sculpture to hurry back out the door, shutting off the lights and smiling at the glowing artwork. Unless there was one Sherlock Holmes in this class—and there wasn’t, of course—no one would wonder why the art was still glowing so luminously even after the lights had supposedly been off for over half an hour.

            Once John had maneuvered himself a safe distance from the school to take a seat on a park bench, he examined the apple core more closely. _A poisoned apple…well, a maybe-_ _poisoned apple._ Of course, he had no lab equipment to test it—but then, if this really was connected to the murders, the police had already done that work for him. If it was poisoned, and connected with this case, it would be doped with belladonna. John had never personally encountered someone dosed with the stuff beyond regular low doses used for medication, but he wasn’t trained to deal with drug overdose for nothing—he knew the effects for doses beyond normal prescription. Of course, difficult to determine the dosage administered in an apple—that depended on a number of other factors. Still, at worst, with a light dose, he knew his heart rate would rise, his skin flush. His pupils would dilate. In small doses—before the more extreme levels that the victims seemed to have received, which were accompanied by hallucinations and brain damage and all other manner of unpleasant things—the main effect would be as an aphrodisiac.

            _I can’t believe I’m talking myself into this,_ John thought. Sherlock had licked mercury-covered wrappers to confirm his theory about the poisoned children; this was at least less dangerous than _that_. Still, better safe than sorry; John would find himself a telephone box so he could call an ambulance if something went wrong. The phone box would provide the additional benefit of that John wouldn’t have to worry about the possibility of meandering about the streets looking a bit too much in need of a good shag. If the apple really was doped with belladonna, he probably _would_ be feeling a bit too much in need of a good shag, by the time he’d tested it. _At least I know what symptoms to look for_ , he thought.

            “It’s the quickest way to test your theory,” assured Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “And if the apple isn’t poisoned, no harm done—you’ll only have licked a rather disgusting old apple.”

            _That a mouse ate from,_ John thought, cringing. But he was nothing if not tolerant of occasional unsanitary practices. This was probably less risky than eating _anything_ from the kitchen at 221B, or, for that matter, stitching people up in the middle of battle in the desert.

            Decided on the matter, John stood and looked about for the nearest telephone box. No—it was too busy here. He didn’t know how long he’d have to wait—what if someone came and tried to kick him out? He could stay someplace _near_ a phone box, and hope he could make it in time, but that seemed like a bad idea, what with the possibility, however slight, that he’d wind up sitting around in public under the influence of an aphrodisiac. _Hallucinogen, if I get too much of it_ , he thought. He would start seeing faces in crowds, hearing voices—and he knew exactly whose it would be. It would be torture.

            On his way from Summers’ house to the school, though, along the main road…hadn’t he walked past a whole row of phone boxes? He could use one of those; it was unlikely all of the three or four others besides the one he’d be in would be occupied at the same time. It wasn’t so terribly busy right now, anyway—mid-morning on a weekday. John changed his course.

           Once he reached the row of boxes, he stepped into one of the center boxes and closed the door behind him. _Right,_ he thought, _don’t mind me, just thirty years in the past locked in a phone box licking a poisoned apple. If I’m lucky it’ll lead me to the answer, which also unfortunately means that if I’m lucky I’ll have to sit around uncomfortably horny in a phone box just in case I start hallucinating and have to get to hospital._

            “Yes, wouldn’t want to hallucinate,” Sherlock-over-his-shoulder said.

            _Oh, you are_ not _coming in here with me,_ John thought.

            “I need to make observations, John. I’ll help you decide if you need to go to the A&E.”

            _Right. Well. It’s probably just an apple._ John lifted it to his mouth and sniffed it. It smelled like an ordinary apple—well—an ordinary week-old apple. Of course, this was all for naught if the poison on it had somehow broken down by now, but if he really wanted he could test the one in the laundrette, too, if it was still there. In fact, he probably would. He stretched out his tongue to the least disgusting-looking area of the apple and traced from the middle to the top. _See, nothing,_ he thought after a minute.

            “ _Please_ ,” Sherlock-over-his-shoulder sounded as if he were rolling his eyes. “You didn’t eat an entire _plant._ You know how long it will take before symptoms will likely start showing up.”

            John didn’t especially fancy the idea of sitting alone in a phone box for the next hour just to see what happened, but he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. _And before you say it, talking to you in my head doesn’t count as ‘not alone,’ Sherlock,_ John thought. He rotated the apple core in his hands, taking a good look at it for some minutes as he tried to pass the time; the poison would take effect soon, but not immediately, if indeed it was in the apple. And if the apple was poisoned, the murderer would have had to get the poison _in_ somehow.

            “Injection would be easy,” suggested Sherlock-over-his-shoulder.

            “Right,” John muttered to himself, because—well, why the hell not? He was in a phone box. “But most of the apple is eaten. It would be pointless to look for marks from a needle; they’d probably have been eaten away.”

            “Would they?”

            John blinked. “No…no, they wouldn’t. If the murderer was trying to pass this off to somebody as something like a gift, and it had a puncture mark smack in the middle of the surface, the recipient wouldn’t want it. They’d probably think it was infested with worms, depending on how big a needle he used was. No, the injection would probably have to be somewhere less conspicuous…” he first examined the bottom of the apple, and then the top, rotating the stem around to search for any puncture marks.

            “Anything?”

            “Nothing. I mean, it’s all wrinkled, but a hole would be noticeable—only to anyone looking for it, of course.”

            “So what then?”

            “Well, maybe it _could_ have been punctured in the middle somewhere with something subtle enough not to be noticed. I don’t know how thick the needle would have to be to puncture into the apple, but maybe it’s possible with a rather small one. You know, the sort of thing that would look like little imperfections apples always have. Or: he could actually use imperfections to hide them.”

            “But something about it is still bothering you, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah.” John turned the core over in his hand.

            “Well?”

            “I just don’t know whether the murderer would do that. Inject the apple, I mean. How would the poison get spread throughout the entire apple? What stops it from just all gathering into a pocket? Or all settling onto one side? Is there a way to _make sure_ it gets spread throughout the whole apple?”

            “The murderer does seem to be rather meticulous. Or was, up until yesterday, anyway.”

            “Right. So would he risk somebody not eating the whole apple and never getting to the part of it with the most poison? He goes through all that trouble—to find his victims at a place and a time that by the time they die they’re somewhere else, so that he won’t get caught—he clearly picks the victims he does for some _reason_ , because of the demographic overlap—but he takes a chance on whether they’ll actually die?”

            “Well reasoned, John. What do you deduce?”

            “It’s probably not poisoned,” John concluded, and took a step toward the door. “And it’ll be pointless for me to stay in here—” he reached for the handle.

            “Stop,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “Just wait.” John froze, unwilling to turn back to a voice that definitely wasn’t there but also definitely sounded _exactly_ as if it were. In fact—no, no, no one else was in here with him. “It could be something worse than belladonna, and the police didn’t identify it correctly,” he continued, “you could stumble out into the street and get hit by a cab. You could start attracting attention, and the police will find you, and take one look at your ID, and then what?”

            “Fine,” John sighed, “okay.” He leaned back against the wall and felt himself space off—for how long, he couldn’t tell, and when he realized that he’d been staring at the “six” button on the phone for god knew how long, John tried to remember what he’d been thinking about—ah. “But I hope this is the only time you’ll play the part of my better judgment, Sherlock, because it’s sort of weirding me out.” He waited to hear Sherlock’s response. If it was as eerily vivid-sounding as it had been minutes ago, if he—well, because, Sherlock _wouldn’t_ be there right now; he was six years old, he couldn’t be there, he was dead, or, no, not that—but if it sounded like he was _there_ , then it was almost certainly the effects of the atropine in the belladonna.

            “Shall I suggest something dangerous to balance it out?” Sherlock was suddenly closer to him, voice ringing through John’s ear, and before John could think he reached out into the empty space before him, half-expecting to feel Sherlock there. He took in a deep breath and tried to shake the feeling of Sherlock  hovering inches over John’s face, invading his personal space— _Sherlock’s specialty_ , thought John. His mind scrambled to fill in the blank, and John shook away the image it began painting in of Sherlock standing there, carefully inspecting him.

            “What are you doing?” John asked, taking another deep breath. _It’s the drug, John,_ he told himself. _It’s the belladonna. He’s not here._

            “Inspecting you for symptoms. What else would I be doing?”

            _He’s not here, he’s not speaking almost directly into your ear, he’s not just standing there half a centimeter from your face, looking for—for—right, yes, of course, symptoms._ “Oh. Right. Of course,” John flushed against his will. Of course his own mind would turn against him, and of course his body would follow suit right afterward. Or maybe it was just being stuck in a small space for a long time that was making him react like this. He hadn’t been such a fan of that in Afghanistan, either. This space, of course, was made even smaller by an imagined Sherlock hovering about. He consumed space every bit as well now as he did when he was actually present, actually visible. John could feel the phone box fill with Sherlock, with his resonating voice bouncing off the close walls and straight into John’s ears, making him glance around for Sherlock every time he spoke.

            “You’re blushing,” said Sherlock, and John felt him leaning closer—somehow closer than he already had been. It made him nervous, which he was sure was the reason for his shortening breath. “Labored breathing. See?”

            “Are you sure that’s the poison?” John breathed. God, and why did he ask it? Either it was the poison or it was—

            “Of course I am. Why else would you think your pupils would be—”

            John shook his head and tried to banish his imagined friend. That was definitely not something he wanted to be thinking about right at this instant—whatever exactly ‘ _that’_ was. Sherlock had been right, though—it had to be the poison. The vivid voices, right there—his mind, constantly trying to make Sherlock as present as possible, because what else was ever on John’s mind theses days, anyway? He couldn’t count himself backwards into calmness; his heart rate was something like what it ought to be if he’d just chased a taxi around for two miles and he was probably just as flushed. He squirmed against the rather sudden restrictiveness of his trousers. “Great,” he mumbled as he was reminded rather involuntarily of something he’d been rather too distracted to think about doing for rather a long time. “Not in a bloody phone box,” he told himself, “barely a mile away from a bloody primary school.” Even against the almost-wintery chill his skin felt hot.

            “Interesting,” said a familiar voice, which John was at least mentally present enough to evaluate as being definitely all in his head, although it was more real than ever—the minute little scrapes of the word against his throat, the perfect intonation, so textured and dimensional in comparison to what John realized were his flatter imaginings of Sherlock’s voice over his shoulder when he was not under the influence of atropine.

            “Oh, god. I’m hallucinating.” Not that that was news—but this time, he was absolutely sure of it. He considered phoning for an ambulance—usually hallucinations were associated with larger doses. Still—still—he felt—he could manage it. This was probably the worst of it. He’d just…it would be fine.

            “Maybe a bit,” he admitted. He leaned forward, as if that would explain it all, and John blinked a few times. Had he just felt Sherlock’s breath on his face? _Hallucination,_ he reminded himself, and fought not to reach out into the air again or to envision Sherlock _there_ and—and then what? “But you’ve been imagining me following you around all this time to make yourself feel better, and because it helps you think, and now that you’re impaired by the drug you haven’t exactly the mental capacity to push me out, especially after sustaining this particular exercise in imagination for so long.”

            “Yeah, thanks, I was aware,” John muttered.

            “And, John, face the facts: you _are_ experiencing the effects of a drug with hallucinogenic properties. To you, it sounds like I’m actually here, speaking to you. In fact, you’re so used to that anyway, that your mind is attempting to explain my enhanced presence in other ways.” John took in a shaky breath and tried not to see Sherlock there in front of him, tilting his head forward and giving John that smug little _you-know-I’m-right_ eyebrow-raise.

            “Also aware of that, yeah.” He buried his face into his hands, which was mostly because he was exasperated and obviously not all that much about the roughness of Sherlock’s voice, or the fact that John could hear the little breaths between his speech, intimate little inhalations and exhalations that are usually quiet enough for people to keep to themselves except that Sherlock is so close to John—so close, by the sound of his words and his breathing—that John can hear every detail of his sounds, every record scratch in his voice, the vibration of strings inside a hollow cavity and then some. He could hear, with the breaths, Sherlock’s chest moving, could see it, inhaling, exhaling, shirt pulled taut across his sternum and then relaxing slightly. John buried his head further.

            “You look rather miserable, John.”

            “Yeah, well,” he sighed. “Belladonna: great for orgies, less great for biding time alone in a tiny box.”

            “Mm,” said Sherlock.

            “Guess you wouldn’t care either way, would you? If it had been you testing the stuff?”

            “John, I assume you do remember from that comment I made about forty seconds ago that I am, in fact, a figment of your imagination?”

            “Yeah…meaning…?”

            “Meaning you don’t know the answer to that question, so nor do I.”

            “Right.” Of course, because he had spent a year and a half as Sherlock’s flatmate and still didn’t have a bloody clue about Sherlock’s sexuality. Not that it was any of his business, of course—but after his failed attempt at figuring it out at Angelo’s the night after they’d met, he’d more or less given up on it. Sherlock was married to his work, whatever exactly that meant, and John had expressed that it was all fine, and so there was never really anything else worth talking about. Or at least, never really anything else that John could justify talking about, or that Sherlock would deem worth his time. Which was okay, because it wasn’t any of John’s business anyway.

            “What _are_ you thinking about?” Sherlock now spoke from the other side of the box. John fidgeted, primarily because he wasn’t quite sure, and didn’t especially like the fact that he was asking such things of himself. “Look at you, itching to get out of that jacket. Feeling warm, are we?”

            “Yes, I get it, you were right, the apple was drugged, now will you please shut up?” John snapped. “Let me suffer in silence, will you? Leave me be until I can get the hell out of this box.”

            “But you aren’t _really_ suffering, not as much as you say. That’s self-imposed. Not really a surprise, though…self-imposed suffering seems to be your forte, doesn’t it? Putting up with me as you did. And now you’re trying to save me so that you can do it some more.”

            “Piss off,” John rubbed at his eyes. It was lucky the booth blocked out a good portion of the light; he was cringing enough at what there was. Any more and his head would be pounding. “You _know_ that’s not why I’m saving you,” he said, when Sherlock didn’t leave.

            “Drugged with an aphrodisiac, and all you’re thinking about is saving my life? How very noble,” Sherlock smirked.

            “Don’t mock me,” John grumbled. “I’m really trying _not_ to think about my pants and what’s in them, all right?”

            “Ah, yes,” Sherlock nodded. “Because the work is more important. You _do_ understand.”

            “Mostly it’s that I’m in a _telephone box,_ Sherlock, with _you_.”

            “Ah.”

            “And since I really can’t do a damn thing about my physical state right now, it would just be best to stay distracted from any of… _that_.”

            “Ah, yes. And ‘ _that’_ was why you tried to shoo me away. Correct?”

            John rested his head in his hand, rubbing his temples.

            “Not good?”

            “Shut up, please. Let’s just talk about the case.”

            “By all means, if you think you can manage it.”

            John found his mind rather fuzzy, though, as he tried to analyze the details. Voices still echoed through it, little sounds, little air currents, mostly Sherlock’s. “Maybe not.”

            “Just sit, then. Wait it out.”

            If this had happened at 221B, maybe Sherlock would have returned John’s favor of tucking him in, hanging about the flat in case of emergency, as John had done when Irene had drugged Sherlock. Of course, for all the likelihood that Sherlock would be intrigued by the effects of the drug on John’s state of mind and physiological response, there was just as much a chance that Sherlock would shy away. John wasn’t so thick as Sherlock liked to accuse him of being—he could tell that there were a few things in the world that made Sherlock Holmes rather uncomfortable. From the few times that John had come home flushed from morning activities after a night at his girlfriend’s and the occasional offhand comment that slipped past John’s filter after an evening drinking with Mike or Lestrade—and, notably, from a few of Mycroft’s snide remarks—John had gathered that _sex_ , and, really, most things overtly sexual, disconcerted Sherlock. He would grow quiet and unresponsive and suddenly absorbed in something—not noticeable to most, but John was apt to take note any time Sherlock didn’t have a cutting response to anything John said about his girlfriends. Maybe seeing John like this would suddenly be too personal for Sherlock, John thought; maybe Sherlock thought of John in the same way John thought of Sherlock—as some sort of exception, something not precisely adhering to the rules of the rest of humanity. Perhaps Sherlock wouldn’t want to have to confront the _fact_ that John could be sexual, right there in the sitting room of 221B, all on his own, out of the context of any of the failed relationships he’d attempted since meeting Sherlock.

            God knows John had a difficult time imagining Sherlock in that way—but who could blame him? –And, of course, not that he’d—put in a lot of effort on it, exactly. But occasionally John had a wank in the shower—and how was _that_ for being a sexual being all on his own? (Surely Sherlock knew, didn’t he, about John’s wanks in the shower? Did Sherlock blush, when he thought about it? Or did he take notes?) And occasionally, over the course of his _activity_ , John wondered whether Sherlock ever did the same, and the image was next to impossible to conjure. _Even tougher to shake,_ John thought, and thankfully Sherlock-over-his-shoulder didn’t seem to notice, because he had no idea what he’d do if he did. It wasn’t the sort of thing he usually thought about, or anything. Just sort of a—what were they called—thought experiment.

            “Experiment,” Sherlock chuckled. “I see.”

            “Oh, shut up.” John couldn’t have gotten any redder, at least, or he may have. “Everybody thinks about that kind of thing.” Sherlock, John’s mind filled in, raised an eyebrow. “Well, maybe not _you_ , but almost everybody.”

            “I will accept your medical expertise on the matter.” Sherlock leaned in and spoke near John’s ear. The folds and wrinkles in his shirt shifted as he moved, and John tried not to wonder whether what about them was so interesting that he couldn’t force his mind not to paint them in. With the haze in his head, thinking wasn’t difficult to avoid. “Speaking of which, are you experiencing any additional symptoms? Can you confirm that they match closely to belladonna?”

            “Dry mouth,” John said, and licked his lips. “I’m also not sweating much.”

            “Still warm, though? You would expect to be sweating more?”

            “Yeah. Pretty common side effect for this drug. Shouldn’t be a problem so long as I stay cool.” Prompted by the thought, he removed his jacket. He still had several layers underneath—he had left from February, after all, the same month he was in now. He’d just put it back on later, as the drug wore off.

            “Well then, doctor, is it safe to say the police have done something correctly for once?”

            John chuckled. “Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, it’s not the police running the tests.”

            “True enough. And how long will this take to wear off?”

            “Probably four or five hours more, but if I hang about for another half-hour or so that’ll be the worst of it over.”

            “So you’re fairly certain you’re not going to need to call anyone?”

            John considered it. “Assuming it really is belladonna, no, I don’t think so.”

            “We could go sit on a bench.”

            “I see you’re no longer my better judgment.”

            “I do what I can,” John heard Sherlock’s lips quirk up. “But in case you’re in too muddled a state for this to have occurred to you: if you leave, you’re going to have to stop talking to yourself.”

            John nodded. “Let me sit it out for a few more minutes, and then I think I have to get out of here.”

            When John left, he was still a bit flushed, and he still squinted against the bright noontime sky, but at least he could begin to think straight. _I really do not want to test the apple that was in the laundrette._ He groaned as the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. _Maybe I’ll feed it to a bird or something._

            “Doesn’t that qualify as ‘ _not good’_?”

            His voice was still every bit as real as it had been, and so John struggled not to glance to the empty air at his side as it spoke. _Honestly couldn’t care less right now, Sherlock._

            There was, though, something that he very much needed to consider: if the apple was poisonous, but had not been injected with the drug, _how_ had it been doped? He would have guessed an application of whatever it was to the skin of the apple, but he’d licked at the fleshy part, far in from the edge. _There aren’t any types of apples that are normally poisonous—besides the cyanide in the seeds_ , he thought. _Like Sherlock said, belladonna is related to potatoes and the nightshade plants, not apples, of all things. So if the drug didn’t come from the outside, and isn’t normally something on the inside, somehow someone made an apple—at least_ six _apples, actually—that just grow with_ _the poison already in them. But how?_

It sounded like some sort of experiment gone bad, like the kind of thing Sherlock would dabble in and John would find in the fridge and accidentally eat. No, it was a tad bit too malicious for that. _Maybe something to sit on exhibit beside the hallucination-inducing gas and glow-in-the-dark rabbits at Baskerville. Sounds like the kind of awful thing they’d work on._ Doctor Stapleton had brought her work home—Bluebell—and if it happened once, could it have happened before? How far back had Baskerville been doing the sort of questionable research they’d been working on? Bluebell, of course, had glowed because he had been genetically manipulated to do so, but—

            _Oh._

            _Genetic manipulation._

Now _there_ was a possibility. Apples, somehow modified to be lethally poisonous, rather than to glow. But then… _Someone took weaponized apples home with them for a trial run?_ Why create weaponized apples in the first place? Seemed a bit ridiculous. _What’re they going to do with them, have a pleasant lunch with the enemy? ‘Oh, yes, wouldn’t you fellows like to take a break from shooting at us and have a bit of a nibble? Here, take these red apples, we all prefer Granny Smith anyhow. Anybody bring sandwiches? A blanket to sit on?’_

            “No,” Sherlock said. “Think.” John tilted his head slightly, waiting for the cryptic clue Sherlock inevitably delivered after such a command. “ _Nuclear fission_.” He looked at John expectantly. John tried to shake the image.

            _What about it?_ John thought. _These aren’t nuclear apples, Sherlock. Don’t be ridiculous. I think we covered checking for anything glow-in-the-dark earlier today and the apple definitely didn’t glow. Wouldn’t help the murderer with the whole blending-in thing, in any case._ Sherlock continued to stare at him as John took a seat on the park bench and shielded his eyes from the sun. Apparently that was the only clue he was getting—which made even less sense than John would expect from Sherlock, since obviously this had come from somewhere in his own mind. Somehow, whatever Sherlock was trying to hint at him was already there. Nuclear: he thought of glowing, like glowing rabbits, like Baskerville. But that couldn’t be all of it, because Sherlock said nuclear _fission_ : not nuclear _weapons_ or nuclear _warfare_. A hint of a smile played across Sherlock’s face. There was also nuclear _power_ , of course.

            “You’ve almost got it,” Sherlock muttered.

            _What, I’m about to do like you and solve the whole case in three seconds?_

“Hardly. But a piece. An explanation. Go on: there are nuclear weapons and there is also nuclear power. This has nothing to do with glowing, John, although that’s why the idea came to your mind.”

            _Nuclear weapons and nuclear power. They’re not really all that distinct—they come from the same general idea—so why would—_

“Tie it to Baskerville. You were thinking about that too. It’s been creeping around your mind for the past couple of hours. Connections, John. Your brain has already made them. You need only bring them to the fore. It’s the difference between seeing and observing, John, and you, unfortunately, are still an amateur.”

            John rolled his eyes. _Thanks for the confidence boost, Sherlock. All right: Baskerville. Baskerville does weapons, mostly. I don’t know about nuclear weapons. Stapleton said the rabbit glowed because of jellyfish genes, not something silly like uranium. Nothing like that. But it’s not as if they_ only _do weapons…glowing rabbits aren’t weapons. And they said something about curing the common cold, didn’t they?_

“They did.” Sherlock sat down beside him. “John, stop dancing around it.” He tapped his head. “The water’s not cold; jump in. _Use your brain._ I can’t do it for you. I’m doing everything I can, here. Try again: nuclear fission.”

            _Nuclear fission: you can use it to make weapons, or generate power._

“Baskerville.”

            _Baskerville would probably do weapons, but they don’t_ only _do weapons, so maybe some of each._

            “You thought that if they had genetically engineered poisonous apples, someone had brought them home to use them. _Connect it_ , John.”

            _Poisonous apples would be a weapon. But that’s ridiculous, so: maybe there was something else—something not intended to be used that way. Like nuclear fission, meant to be used for power, or maybe just the result of scientific curiosity, before someone realized they could kill people with it._

“So it would be fruitless,” Sherlock started, and John snickered to himself, earning a confused look from a woman walking past his bench, “to try to find specifically someone who made _lethal apples_. Start _general_. Start _benign._ ”

            _General—general like what? What’s the general form of lethal apples? Benign—non-lethal apples?_ He crossed his arms. _What would you do instead of somehow changing an apple to make it poisonous?_

_General._

_Just_ changing _an apple._ Like changing a rabbit. Maybe they’d intended something else—maybe they were studying whether they could make them more nutritious, or something, or, better, more resistant to poor conditions, and some person or lab—maybe even the same one—had used the same sort of procedure to make the apple poisonous instead. But—this was the eighties.Maybe it would’ve been a plausible theory back in 2012, but here? Now? _There weren’t glowing rabbits in the eighties. Nobody did anything like that, Baskerville or elsewhere._

“ _Nothing_ like that? Are you quite sure? Were you keeping up on your biology journals in the eighties, John, in between your football games and primary school maths homework?”

            _You’re talking about genetically modified plants, Sherlock. I don’t think that was a big deal until the nineties._

“You’re just guessing. Don’t argue, John, _I am you_. I know you are. If you’re so sure, prove me wrong.”       

            John considered that it would probably be about a thousand times easier to travel back to the fantastic days of the internet to do a quick search—but that would mean more taxi rides to and fro across London, and his money was running low enough as it was; not to mention, he didn’t need to try to tempt Mycroft into hijacking his—well—Andrew’s, John supposed, but _he_ was using it right now—machine. On top of all that, and most importantly, he was already not running at a hundred percent, and wouldn’t be for hours more—tempting fate by adding time travel and all its effects into the mix sounded risky, distinctly unappealing, and possibly—especially for a trip over twenty years—deadly. He’d try a library first. _Get that smug look off your face, Sherlock._

            “You’re the one smirking, John.”

            And he was.

            Several hours and two very red, tired eyes later, John had accumulated a list of sorts. There were a number of published papers that actually mentioned genetically altering plants—or at least, the theoretical possibility of it—that had been published just in the past few years. Maybe it wasn’t _such_ a stretch—after all, belladonna was a plant, too. John had heard of a few cases of people being poisoned because they’d grafted one plant onto a related poisonous plant. Apples could be grafted, too, so maybe that was what the murderer had done, if there was something similar to apples that had a poison like belladonna. But nightshade plants were potatoes and the like—not exactly _closely related_ to apples by a long shot—so maybe not.

            All the while John’s searching had been interrupted by voices. He was sure it was just somebody asking the librarian where she could find a particular publication—but that was only _after_ he’d looked, _after_ he’d heard something else in Sherlock’s voice, some sarcastic comment about any idiot being able to find the nonfiction. Or, he’d glance up and swear he saw Sherlock’s coat swishing around a corner—once he had gotten up to look—but no, no, no, it was still the belladonna playing tricks with his mind. “Look five lines up,” Sherlock would sometimes say, and John would swear he was leaning over his shoulder. Sometimes Sherlock would read passages from the papers for him. John quite nearly fell asleep to the sound of his voice, once, before realizing that Sherlock was reading off very relevant information explaining how changing plants’ genes in some specific way could, in fact, be done.

            _What now?_ he thought. Plant genetics was definitely not his area. Then again, neither was crap telly Sherlock’s, but he still figured out that Raoul de Santos had killed Connie Prince. _Yeah, yeah, connections, I get it_ , John thought. Sometimes even the consulting detective consulted others.

            John copied down the names of the papers’ authors. With any luck, some of them lived in the country; with even more, one could tell him whether it was even possible to genetically imbue apples with the chemicals that made belladonna poisonous. He’d look them up in the library’s phone books and see just how much luck he had.

            The first one, thankfully, lived in Nottingham. John continued down the list. _Not here, not here, she would likely still be in the United States, these authors are all in Belgium, I already looked up that Montagu fellow from the other paper, she published in America—_ there, Glasgow, and another author who was now in Oxford.

            _Great,_ thought, John, _another trip to a phone._ At least he’d spent long enough poring through scientific journals and card catalogues that the majority of the effects from the drug had worn off. It was mostly mindless work—he hadn’t actually read more than the abstract of any of the articles; he just needed a good place to start, and looked for promising titles and keywords. He didn’t have days or weeks to square away this was even a possibility.

            Paper in hand, John left the library for the nearest phone. He had precious little change to work with—though he could always exchange one of his notes for coins, he supposed, but that would take yet more time—so if he was going to get this done in a timely fashion, one of these numbers would have to do the trick.

            “Hello?” came the voice through the other end.

            “Hello. Um, I hope I didn’t call at a bad time, Dr. Cocking?” Some people were probably having dinner, John thought, and felt a pang in his empty stomach.

            “Not at all, not at all.”

            “Um…I’m an…author.” It was sort of true; and anyway, it seemed like a reasonable way to make sure Cocking didn’t try to throw some overly complicated explanation at him, or become immediately suspicious.“Working on a novel. I had a question about a paper you published a few years ago. Well, maybe. I’m not sure. I can’t say I exactly understand. Er, which is why I’m doing research about it, of course.”

            “I can’t answer it if you don’t ask it…” he answered genially, and paused at the end as if waiting for something— _oh,_ John thought, _my name_.

            “John.”

            “All right, John, ask away.”

            “Right—uh—I was wondering about—I mean, you talked about the possibility of giving plants particular characteristics in your paper, yeah? By genetically manipulating them? My story’s plot involves something like that, but I need more, er, background about how it would work to see if my idea’s plausible at all. Do you know if anybody has actually done it successfully?”

            “That’s an awfully broad question, m’boy. ‘Genetic manipulation’ can mean a lot of things, and there are just as many ways of going about it. You know what, though, not too long ago there was a group that published about an actual procedure for infecting the plants and replacing genes that way. Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for?”

            “Yeah, actually.” It sounded promising enough. “Do you know if any of its authors are in the country right now?” He couldn’t afford any long-distance calls just now—it wasn’t _that_ promising.

            “Yes—let me get you the information,” he said, and seemed to be thumbing through something. As he read it off and John copied it down, he realized it matched to one of the other authors he’d written down.

            “Ta,” John said.

            “Good luck with your book,” answered Cocking. John smiled to himself. This would be one case that he couldn’t put on his blog later.

At least his next call was already decided for him. He hung up and dialed the next number.

            “Hello, is this Dr. Leemans?”

            “Yeah,” he answered. “Who’s this?”

            “Uh…name’s John. I had a question relating to a paper you had published last year. You had a procedure for changing the genes in plants?”

            “Sure did. This for a research project or something? I’ll warn you, I can’t tell you anything about what we’re working on right now. Or are you trying to request a copy of the paper?”

            He’d use the same cover as before. _Should’ve just led off with it_ , he thought. “I’m…an author, I’m writing a book, and I was wondering if you could use the procedure in your paper on something like apple trees instead.”

            “Well, congrats to you for actually doing your research for your book. Terribly uncommon for fiction writers these days, if you ask me.”

            “Er, thanks.”

            “I can’t give you a very detailed answer to your question, myself—I don’t see why it _couldn’t_ be done, but I don’t know that it’s been tested—but I feel like Dr. Nolan Bachmeier could help you out better than I can. He was on the project with us and knows a hell of a lot more about apples than I do. Guy even owns an orchard on the side and all that. Your story have a lot to do with apples?”

            “Yeah, I guess.”

            “Well then, be sure to bring that up and he’ll tell you everything you need to know, and then some.”

            “Great. Um—”

            “Let me get you his address. Think his orchard’s something like near Oxford.” John copied it down as Leemans read it. “Want his phone as well?”

            “Yes,” said John, although he had no intent to use it—not before he did a little more investigating, at the very least. He copied that down along with the address. “Thank you.”

            “No problem at all.”

            John set the phone back into his cradle and grinned. It was time to get something in his stomach, and then use the rest of his taxi money on a hunch.    

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * If you are interested in any of the papers referred to here, or any other aspect of the research required for this chapter, let me know and I will hook you up with the sources. I honestly looked up so much stuff that you do not want me cluttering the chapter notes with all the links.
> 
> ** Scientists mentioned are not meant to reflect the personalities or lives of the actual persons with those names. If you are the Dr. Leemans who contributed to the paper referred to here and are actually a woman, I am very sorry, and I actually spent about half an hour trying to find out more about you, but you are elusive.


	8. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (VII)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d have to test another apple. _I guess you’ll be coming back_ , John thought in Sherlock-over-his-shoulder’s direction. It was a comfort, in a way—in a very bizarre way—mostly because here, in this place, he was otherwise all alone, short of one probably-serial-killer. The woods were dark, cold in the February air. It would be so deceptively pleasant to have Sherlock breathing near him, speaking in a way that filled up his ears rather than flatly ringing through them as the more consciously imagined voice did in comparison.
> 
> _Here goes nothing_ , he thought, and peeled away a sliver of the skin of the apple to lick tentatively at the flesh. _Except, hopefully not_ nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that so far all but the first chapter have been in the "Through Galaxies of Apple Trees" section, but I promise the focus of the story (and therefore section and section title) will shift somewhat in the next couple-few chapters. After all, John has a Sherlock to save! I should also mention, though, that I am still working on the next chapter and have no idea how much longer it will be or how much work it will entail, so -- a forewarning if there is a bit of a gap between here and there.
> 
> I continue to appreciate the assistance of [Morwen_Eledhwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/morwen_eledhwen) more than I can say. If you had any idea how many problems she helps me fix you'd probably respect me less. XD

It was perfectly possible that John was barking mad for doing things this way, but he was a man of action if nothing else, and after hours in the library and recovering from his dosage of belladonna, he was ready to do something.

“Figured it out?” asked Sherlock-over-his-shoulder.

 _Maybe._ John was grinning. _Is this how it feels?_

Sherlock smirked back. “John, I have a much better track record than you with this sort of thing. I don’t think you should assume that you’re correct.”

_Right, forming theories before I have all the evidence, I know._

“It’s…nice. Seeing you this way,” Sherlock sobered slightly. “If solving cases gives you this much joy, why didn’t you do it before? Before you time-traveled?”

‘ _After I died_ ’ was what Sherlock was trying to imply, John thought to himself. If it were really Sherlock, John would tell him to make his own deductions. He’d grin and make some snide remark, like, “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” But this wasn’t Sherlock. This was him, wondering these things about himself through what he imagined to be Sherlock’s eyes, because it was easier this way, less lonely.

 _Because you’re alive right now,_ John thought, _and before, you weren’t. You can’t see what I’m doing right now, but you’ll see eventually; I’ll tell you about it after I save you._ If it was all about saving people, John thought, climbing into the taxi that finally pulled up alongside him, he’d just go back to being a doctor. It was saving people _and_ it was exciting. Using Sherlock’s methods when Sherlock was gone and gone for good was only a painful reminder of the man he’d never see again. This was different, better.

He gave the taxi driver the address for the orchard and they were off. It’d probably take them at least forty minutes to get there, but that was fine; John didn’t want to be seen anyway, so he’d wait until it was darker to conduct his investigations. It was already dimming.

In the meantime, there was plenty to think about.

“What conclusions have you reached?” asked Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, who John was relieved to find no longer occupied space in the cab beside him, no longer sounded quite so real and so dimensional. The last thing he needed was to be making funny faces at an empty seat while he imagined Sherlock’s facial expressions and heard his collar-turning and leg-shifting and indignant sniffing.

 _It was either the owner of the orchard,_ thought John, _or somebody he knows_. He could have provided somebody else—maybe a friend, maybe an interested party with the funds to back up his interest (and wouldn’t that help the orchard along nicely?)—with the means to do it. If the latter were the case, John could hope for a time when the orchard owner was out of his office or home, and look for contacts.

“How are you sure you’ll find them?” asked Sherlock. “Think about it: If the killer grew these apples to be poisonous, he’s been at it for a while. He’s patient.” John could nearly hear the glowing admiration in Sherlock’s voice. “He’s had that recipe, so to speak, for a good long while—long enough to grow an apple tree to an age that it bears fruit. Do you think the orchard owner keeps phone numbers from two and three years ago just sitting about?”

 _Years_ … John frowned. _The research wasn’t published all that long ago…last year, I think,_ John glanced over his notes. _He would’ve had to give the information to somebody else before the paper was published—as they were working on it_. Possible, but unlikely—no one in the research group, probably including the orchard owner himself, Bachmeier, would want such revolutionary research kept anything less than hush-hush until its publication. Still, it wasn’t worth discounting just yet—it was unlikely, but not, as Sherlock would argue, impossible. There were also people like lab assistants, people who might deliver or fix equipment…unlikely they would be able to do much of anything with the research after taking it, but also possible. Perhaps the orchard owner grew the apples, but sold them to someone else, in which case there _could_ be contact numbers someplace in the man’s home.

As dusk fell and the taxi made its way to Bachmeier’s orchard ( _not used as a main income source_ , John thought as they approached, _too small, definitely just a hobby_ ), John asked the cabbie to stop and pull over to the side. “I’ll get out here,” he said, fishing out his wallet and counting out which of his notes that he could spend in this time. He had enough for a trip back, at least, and some past that…

“Need me to wait?” the cabbie asked.

John didn’t know how long he’d be. _Damn._ The area wasn’t nearly populated enough for there to be other taxis coming through. He’d have rented a car, but, of course, that wouldn’t work with a license from the future— He thought of Dartmoor, of Sherlock insisting on being the one to drive. John suspected it was because that was the opposite of what Mycroft would do—but maybe that wasn’t it either.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” John admitted. The investigation could take him half an hour—or, if he found another poisoned apple and had to test it himself, he’d either have to go back to the cab unquestionably drugged up, or wait it out and have him come back later. He counted through his money as he paid the driver for this trip: he probably had enough to hire him to come back, and maybe get him pretty close to the Holmes residence—definitely not enough for anything else besides. If he wanted to eat, he’d have to go to sometime later. _Should’ve asked ‘Mummy’ to leave out a snack,_ he thought. “Can you come back tomorrow morning? Maybe nine?”

“It’ll cost you more, of course.”

“I know.”

“Just here, then? This spot?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be here.” The driver gave him a wary eye and turned around to drive back the way he came.

 _Okay, Watson,_ he thought to himself. _This is it._

***

The most important thing was not to be seen, John figured—this was some man’s, some biologist’s, possibly some murderer’s private property, and he might not take too kindly to someone wandering about. As John approached the property, he noted a few rows of several trees, all bare for the winter, and not far from there, a shed with vents on the roof and an apparatus attached to the side—storage? It was in clear view, though, of the smallish house adjacent, which still had its lights on inside—its inhabitants had probably just finished dinner, were maybe sitting in front of the telly or cozying up with a book or plotting another murder. John would have to wait until later tonight if he wanted to investigate either the shed or the house itself—but that was why he’d asked the cab to come back tomorrow morning, after all. If there was any sleeping to be done at all that night, John would manage in the nearby wooded area. Between childhood camping trips and his time in the army, he was more than confident about that. But if this was anything like investigating cases with Sherlock, he might not have time to sleep at all, might have to stake out or whatever—and that was fine too; he was just as used to that.

There was, though, in the meantime, a smaller shed behind the one near the trees that was mostly blocked from view by both the storage shed itself and the dark of the night. It was unlit, and fell outside of the majority of the light coming from the house. John crept along the edge of the woods until he could emerge behind the shed and sneak around to the front.

Perhaps the orchard owner kept notes about what types of apples he grew in here—and what, would there be one labeled ‘ _lethal, give only to pretty young women_ ’? Maybe it was a bit of a stretch. John held the door firmly to keep it from swinging open, and slipped inside, shutting the door before pulling out his mobile to use as a flashlight. There was the usual—fertilizer, a shovel, trowels, hoses, nothing that screamed “serial killer.” Certainly no barrels labeled “poisoned apples.” John turned back to the door to shine his phone’s light on the handle and noticed that part of it was reflected by something shiny: a small, glossy photograph.

“Not recent,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “Look at the hairstyles and the photo’s discoloration. Early seventies—perhaps late sixties.” John remembered family photos from when Harry had been born—his father’s smiling eyes, wearing almost the exact same shirt as the man in this picture. His mother always broke out old photographs on their birthdays. Now, John hadn’t even the foggiest idea what had become of them.

 _I wonder if this is Nolan Bachmeier,_ John thought. The other figure in the photograph was a young woman, leaning against him, clutching his hand. John’s brow furrowed—she looked familiar, if only slightly. Not like someone he’d known, but just a face he’d glimpsed in a crowd…

“The body on the street,” Sherlock said. “Not all that similar, really, but of course you would draw the obvious parallels. Probably the same parallels the murderer drew, in fact.”

 _So you think it was him, and it was somehow related to this girl in the picture?_ John leaned in closer. A ring on each of their fingers—they were engaged, or married.

“I’d be very surprised if this man wasn’t Dr. Bachmeier.”

Right. John tried to memorize the thing as well as he could, in case any details from it would be important. _Look: a smudge in the corner. Pretty heavy, like it’s happened a lot._ He paused just short of putting his fingers on it. _He touches it every time he’s in here. He puts the photo up where he’ll see it every day when he goes to tend to his apples._

“A reminder. To solidify his will, why he’s doing this. Those apples took a long time to develop and grow, John. He needed something to remind him why he was doing it.”

_And it’s somehow related to this woman. Like some kind of…revenge, or…_

“Exactly.”

John hung about in the cramped shed for a few minutes more, scouring the place for any details he’d missed, but there was nothing else quite so telling as the photo. Sherlock could probably solve the entire case and prove the man guilty by the contents of the shed alone—but John’s brain wasn’t a hard drive.

As he exited the shed, John slunk back to the forest edge, where he could wait in a more shadowed, camouflaged area. In the house all he could see was a figure ambling from room to room, almost certainly male.

_Shouldn’t I confirm he’s the same bloke as in the photo?_

“Leave the police to it. If you can find the damning evidence here, that should be plenty of them to work off of.”

_That’s not your style, Sherlock._

“No, it’s not. But I’m not the one solving the case. Do you really want to draw this out further than you have to? With your limited funds? You’ve done your part—more than that. You didn’t have to do anything.”

 _People were going to die._ Before Sherlock could make any smartarse comments about John going and volunteering at a hospital, he added, _You would have taken this case._

“Yes. I would have. Deadly apples—very unique.”

John started at the thought. Seven apples lined up on the arm of Sherlock’s chair, six cores in the rubbish bin, one core on his nightstand, misting with the water bottle, laughing and laughing and that long, sober look— _You_ were _looking into this, weren’t you? After the court case. The unsolved version, where I wouldn’t have been here to help the police. The cold case._ Sherlock, of course, was silent. He couldn’t know anything John didn’t know, not really. Maybe it was completely unrelated. John had found a different apple sitting in the flat, days earlier, one carved with “I O U.” John knew Moriarty had visited, and when he asked if he’d been the one to leave it there, Sherlock simply nodded. He refused to say anything else about their meeting. If John would have known, he would have pressed more than he did—but—he didn’t. Not then. Maybe Sherlock looking into the apples was about that, maybe it was a teasing clue from Moriarty, maybe it was one more little push at Sherlock, maybe it was—

“Stop it,” Sherlock snapped. “Look,” he finally said. John looked back to the house. The figure was turning off lights until all that was left was a faint glow from one window—maybe a bedroom lamp to read by.

John crept along the wall of the larger storage shed farthest from that room until he was able to slip in.

 _Obvious_ , he thought upon his first searching glance around the place, carefully lined along all the walls, the cold air thick with humidity. All of the apples resting on slatted wooden shelves like shallow crates stacked atop one another were the same, bright green—all but one stack of shelves’ worth, tucked away in the corner of the shed. Its apples were bright red.

“Wouldn’t want to make such a simple mistake as eating one of your own poisoned apples. I’d bet the others are all Granny Smith.” The red wasn’t uncommon in and of itself—it was the same mottled yellow-and-green-and-red-and-rose shade typical of just about any red apple but red delicious.

_If he’s the only one who lives here, no one would ask why he has just one different tree. If they did, there are a thousand more believable explanations than “it’s genetically engineered to be poisonous and the others aren’t so I don’t want to mix them up.”_

“People want to believe the likely and the ordinary. He could say he had no idea why that crop turned out differently, and no one would question it. Or, ‘Oh, just trying something a little different, see how I like it.’”

 _I guess I ought to test it,_ John thought, approaching the red apples.

“Careful,” Sherlock said, and John paused momentarily in shock. “It’s fresher, and you don’t know anything about the dosage.”

John grabbed one from the top section, half expecting to hear alarm bells go off and bright lights come down upon him. But the echoing with sounds of the woods continued on, muffled through the walls of the storage shed. _Best do this where I won’t be found._

He could wait until tomorrow, until he’d be safe back in London crammed into a phone box again, but what if this apple was perfectly normal? It could be a fluke. He’d have to test another. If that was perfectly normal, then what? He’d have to do what he could to gather extra information about the man living in the house—if he was Bachmeier—about anyone he could have contacted, could have sold the apples to.

“Just be careful,” Sherlock said. “Please.”

John wondered if he could even die in the past—wouldn’t that cause some sort of paradox? He would read about his own dead body in the newspapers. No, he was too young to be reading the papers—but his parents would see it. They would assume he was a distant relative, and keep the clipping, and John would find it later and see that it was _him_.

“Let’s not risk it.”

 _I guess you’ll be coming back_ , John thought in Sherlock-over-his-shoulder’s direction. It was a comfort, in a way—in a very bizarre way—mostly because here, in this place, he was otherwise all alone, short of one probably-serial-killer. The woods were dark, cold in the February air. It would be so deceptively pleasant to have Sherlock breathing near him, speaking in a way that filled up his ears rather than flatly ringing through them as the more consciously imagined voice did in comparison. If it was an emergency, he decided, he could wake the man in the house, use his telephone to call an ambulance. The man would probably recognize the symptoms, but there’d be nothing John could do to prevent that, if such a problem arose. It would be inconvenient and possibly dangerous, but John didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, and, after all, it was better than being dead. He wondered vaguely if he could look up the Holmes’ number, in the absolute worst case, and get a hold of whoever “V” was—‘Mummy.’ See, he thought with a sardonic smile to himself, _I’ve got it all planned out_.

“I fear I’ve been a bad influence.”

John continued a bit farther into the woods, where he could be reasonably confident that his voice wouldn’t carry into earshot even if Dr. Bachmeier enjoyed cracking his window open for the chilly air, or stepping out to the porch partway through the night. This way, he could talk to himself—well, to Sherlock—well, to himself. Hearing his own voice seemed to help ground him.

 _Here goes nothing_ , he thought, and peeled away a sliver of the skin of the apple to lick tentatively at the flesh. _Except, hopefully not_ nothing.

***

And it wasn’t nothing.

John leaned against one of the thick tree trunks and felt his skin warm. Knowing the ghosts of hallucinations were coming didn’t make them less surprising—more so now, in fact, now that it would be so much more difficult to get help if he needed it. Sherlock was right to point out that John knew absolutely nothing about how this dosage of the apple would differ from the last one—except, of course, that eating at least part of it was meant to kill someone.

And even if it was the same dosage, it was different, now, from being in the phone box. There he was contained and safe and it was broad daylight. Now it was freezing—and dark. John’s breath came out in hot huffs and swirled around him, and as time passed he found himself trying to find something in them, a face, a—well. Sherlock’s face, of course. Breezes crackled dried, dead tree branches and John would startle, which was stupid, _stupid_ , because these weren’t _gunshots_ or _bombs_ , but it was difficult to shake the feeling that they were. Difficult to shake the more recent memories of the nighttime at Dartmoor, of Sherlock’s own drug-induced delusions, of that _hound_ —

John whipped around at a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

“John,” said Sherlock, and John whipped around again, the other way, because he could’ve _sworn_ Sherlock was talking in his ear, but no, of course not, and there were more pressing matters, like the—but of course there wasn’t a—well, there probably was wildlife in these woods, but—

“John,” Sherlock said again.

“ _What_?” John answered, louder than he meant to, and he leaned more heavily against the tree trunk, expecting another _‘John’_ but realizing that it had just been a breeze, this whole—the sound had—

“Sherlock,” John said, “Sherlock, where are you?”

“That’s a ridiculous question,” answered a voice, as if Sherlock were standing on the opposite side of the tree. “I’m a hallucination, John; at the best of times, you _imagine_ me here.”

And then John swore he felt a breeze at his side, but maybe he only heard it, but maybe he didn’t hear anything at all, he was _hearing things_ , of course, and his head was buzzing like lights and alarms and—

“I can be wherever you want,” said Sherlock from John’s side, from where John had felt the breeze. He squinted through the dark, as if his vision, now adjusted to the dark, could pick up something more if only he could focus harder on it, because things didn’t just _sound_ like that without being _there_ , all deep and echoes coming off of trees, a voice with its own grooves just like the trees had, John thought, as he dug his fingers into the bark behind him and fought to maintain as much lucidity as possible, battling buckling knees that felt weak against the thought of Sherlock being _there_ and _alive_ , against the thought of things in the woods, hounds and glowing beasts, because of course neither of those things were here, neither Sherlock nor bloodthirsty animals, despite the glimpses and the sounds. “I’m here, John,” Sherlock said. “Are you?”

“You’re _not_ ,” John answered. He tilted his head back and felt the bark against his scalp. It wasn’t necessary yet to worry about whether he was in danger—John strongly suspected that this dose wasn’t significantly stronger than the last, but only seemed that way because of the dark that came with night, which itself preyed upon the human mind even at the best of times. _At least I know he’s growing poisoned apples here_ , John thought, but it was difficult to ponder that, to consider his next course of action, just now. The light scraping sound of his hair against the trunk as he tilted his head, John could have sworn, sounded exactly like grasses bending under dogs’ feet, like…

“You’re fine, John,” Sherlock said, and John felt himself flushing, or already flushed, or, either way, now more than before, because Sherlock was directly in front of him, now, his coat swishing around his calves, twigs and leaves crunching lightly beneath his shoes, breath coming out lightly, perturbing, John imagined, the swirls of his own exhalations: that was why they blew about, wasn’t it? Sherlock’s breath. John’s hands squeezed the bark, his fingernails creating faint grating against it that may also have been Sherlock stepping closer, snapping dead foliage. John closed his eyes and he could hear, he swore, the presence of a nearby body, blocking the sound from directly before him and generating its own, and felt warm, warm, warm, like Sherlock was standing before him, close, closer.

“What are you doing?”

He heard the soft rub of Sherlock’s scarf against his neck and shuddered out another white puff of air, froze as bark scraping was Sherlock’s hands coming to rest on either side of his head, just by his ears, no, _on_ his ears, brushing hair back, grasping his head like a night long ago at the train tracks, when they had spun and spun, yellow, stars, Sherlock’s instant of gratefulness when John pulled out his mobile with the photo of the graffiti, almost more dazed than the way Sherlock had stared the first time John offered to let him borrow his phone. “Protecting you,” Sherlock whispered in his ear.

And it made sense, it did, because there was an eerie whistling in the woods, the rustling of living things, and howling that may or may not have been distant wind, probably wasn’t, probably was, probably—because it was dark here, cold and alone like death and cracking like bones and, “You’d have done me a lot more good if you just hadn’t jumped, Sherlock,” John said, his voice shaking in the cold and distress.

“You regret coming here, then,” Sherlock said, and he and his coat swept away, walking around to the back of the tree. “Seeing me in the past.”

“That’s not it,” John said, and inched his hands backward toward Sherlock, fingers creeping through holding spots in the ridges in the bark. Then, “You know what I meant.”

He heard Sherlock lean around the tree to whisper in his ear again. “How are you faring, John?”

“Awfully,” he said, because the night pressed down heavy on him and tree limbs were arms and breezes were beasts and his heart sped and sped, and sped and sped again because while he felt so much like he was hunkered down in a bunker, every muffled _crack_ an imminent mortar, felt so much like crisis and quick repairs to gunshot wounds, he was warm, and hot, pink and red, every part of him an exposed nerve ending subject to not only touch but sound, sound which was almost like touch when it was Sherlock’s near voice. The two were remarkably similar, and John was feeling it, oversensitized by the combination, because it wasn’t as if danger didn’t normally have that effect on him anyway, a little, just a little, a little hotter and a little keener, and maybe _that_ , that _thing_ , that _Sherlock breathing close_ thing, felt a little like danger, too.

“Turn around,” Sherlock said from the other side of the tree, and John felt ghosts of hands against his as he turned to face Sherlock’s voice and replaced his arms around the thick trunk’s sides, because he _expected_ to feel Sherlock there, he did. John laid his cheek against the tree trunk, and exhaled, and shuddered.

He and Sherlock were now face-to-face, both leaning around to one side of the tree, if only it weren’t too dark to—well, no, of course his face wasn’t _there_ , but where it would be—and Sherlock breathed, “That’s better,” and as he did John felt air drawn from his own lungs, his knees shaking, and he widened his stance to brace his legs against the tree, and leaned closer toward Sherlock, to hear him better, and _oh_ , oh, because his body was an exposed nerve and god, oh god, god help him, he felt every part of that tree trunk against him, solid and rough, against every part of his body. His hands gripped tighter against the bark; maybe he had splinters beneath his nails or maybe that was in his head, too.

“Why you?” John huffed out, and even he couldn’t make sense of it, brain buzzing.

Sherlock was pacing around the tree. John heard circles and circles of footsteps, caught glimpses out of the corner of his eye as he tried not to think about the fact that he couldn’t move, unsure of what he’d do if he did.

“You average once a day,” Sherlock said. “I monitored your shower habits for several weeks.”

“No you didn’t,” John said through his teeth. “You’re in my head.”

“Just like I am roughly twenty percent of the time you shower. Is this so different from the usual?” A pause. Sherlock came to a stop. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, John?”

“Piss off.” And yes, he was saying this to himself, but god, no, not here, not like this, he wasn’t—god, but he was—and of course it was bloody _belladonna_ , and Sherlock always hovering on the edges of his consciousness anyway. “Go back to normal,” he said more loudly.

“Wait it out,” Sherlock said, suddenly calmer, less aggressive, removed. “Like before.” John exhaled slowly, released his grip, leaned back slightly. He took a step away from the tree and then another step, and stumbled over to a different trunk, collapsing to sit with his back against it. “Do you think they’re waiting for us?” Sherlock asked.

“They?”

“The hounds. Can’t you hear them?”

John buried his face in his hands, because he could hear them, he _could_ , quiet little snarls less than a quarter-mile off, steps and yips and fog and shortening breath. “Get me out of here, Sherlock.”

“Wait it out. You’ll be better later. You’ll be calmer later.”

“I know.”

“You’ve found the source of the poisoned apples. Get some rest, John.” Leaves rustled as something hit the ground—Sherlock’s coat, John thought, and watched the leaves scatter about in the breeze. He heard it drag across dirt, and then heard Sherlock’s soft breathing as he laid it around John’s shoulders. He struggled to breathe slower, to tune out the sounds, to imagine that the coat was really there, warm against him, protecting him against the outside, and John dozed off against the tree.

***

John woke with a start. “Bloody hell,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his forehead. Wooded area and he felt like shite so— _oh, right_. He spotted the apple out of the corner of his eye. Yes, it had been poisoned, straight from that storage shed; it had to be this guy or someone the police could easily find through him. Now he just had to get the information to Scotland Yard, and there was something he was forgetting but—

Oh— _oh_.

The cab.

John fumbled for his mobile to check the time: 8:53am. _Shit_. If the cab arrived and Bachmeier saw it—

He’d bring the apple as proof, just leave strong warnings not to eat it, lest they not believe him—John grabbed it, stuffed his mobile into his pocket, and dashed off through the woods, keeping the home and orchard in view to orient himself, until he reached the road, huffing. _Thank god_ , he thought, when he reached the spot he’d been dropped off by and saw the taxi approaching. When it stopped in front of him, he climbed in.

“You look like you’ve been through hell, mate,” said the cabbie. “Where are you going, now? Back to where I picked you up?”

If he could just get back into London, he could find a cheaper form of transport to take him where he needed to go next—a bus, probably. Where he’d been wasn’t too far into the city, and there was probably a route near there. “Yeah, if you would.” After he did this, he could take something that would get him as close to the Holmes’ as possible, and then, depending on state and the state of his wallet at the time, either walk or get a shorter cab ride. For now, though, as the driver started back to the city, John pulled his notebook from his pocket to begin composing his note.

 _DO NOT EAT THE APPLE,_ he wrote first, in large letters, and flipped to the next page. _Regarding deaths related to belladonna, most recent two days ago, death was caused by apples possibly genetically modified to contain the poison (like this one). Grown at residence of Nolan Bachmeier, near Church Wood._ He pulled out the information he’d written about the papers, and wrote the citation for the research Bachmeier had helped with. John nodded to himself. That should be enough for them to go on. He’d taken the apple from the classroom, too, of course…god, it was still in his pocket, wasn’t it? John pulled it out and added to his note. _This was from the school Summers taught at. Saw another in the rubbish at the nearest laundrette to the scene the day the most recent victim died._ He pulled his sleeve up his palm and did his best to rub any possible fingerprints from the things—from this most recent one, his saliva. _Best be safe_. There were probably traces, but—well. If for some reason they tested it, they had nothing to compare it against. John wasn’t exactly certain how good testing was at this point, either—after all, he was just a kid at this time; it wasn’t exactly something he’d been terribly concerned with.

John hoped the police would be able to find everything they needed with this—it certainly seemed like plenty, an excellent lead at the very least. Of course, John had another case to be working on—the entire reason he had the time machine in the first place. Now that he knew the machine worked, and at least a little about _how_ it worked, he supposed Andrew could probably be found _somewhere_ in 1989, the last date listed on the machine when he’d found it.

His best bet was to check where the machine had landed the first time he went back—the original coordinates. If he couldn’t find anything there, he’d be stuck, probably have to go back and ask Brian a few more questions—or maybe he’d save Sherlock first, do the selfish thing, the _important_ thing. There was, though, something else in 1989, something else from that year that made it stick in John’s mind, something having to do with Sherlock— _oh_. Carl Powers. But he couldn’t go watch Sherlock try to convince the police, couldn’t—because—he’d done enough interacting with Sherlock, didn’t want to risk their not meeting, since he’d actually _talked_ to him as a child. And the older he got, the more likely he was to remember John.

John was able to find a bus that’d drop off near New Scotland Yard—perfect. Of course, he couldn’t exactly waltz in with the evidence and drop it off without a few funny looks, could he? Sherlock would be able to get away with that sort of thing—because they knew him. John also wouldn’t be surprised if Sherlock’s first job consulting with Scotland Yard started because a suspicious bloke in a great coat came by with the exact evidence they needed. But, of course, being so well-remembered wouldn’t do _John_ any good. Someone would take good notes on his appearance and where he went—probably demand his name, actually, and more information, if they got even the slightest look at what his note entailed—and it seemed like an awfully careless approach for someone trying to remain anonymous.

If Sherlock _had_ wanted to drop it off anonymously, though, he would have—well, he would have mailed it, probably. That was the smart way to go. Of course it would require John to buy some supplies, a box, tape, not to mention stamps, all of which would take time and be the sort of errand Sherlock would send someone else on, someone like John, or before that, anyone else he could’ve sent on errands, like—

_Oh._

The homeless network.

Finding someone in need of spare coin wasn’t difficult, John found after he disembarked. “Um, hello,” he approached a woman wrapped in what looked like a family quilt. “Look, I was hoping you could do me a favor?” He dug out his wallet. The bus had saved him quite a bit to what he thought he might have by now—he dug out a five-pound note. “Well, a job, really, just an easy one. I just can’t do it myself.”

“What sort of a job?”

“I need to turn some evidence in to Scotland Yard,” he nodded toward the next street. “But I don’t want to be in the news for it or anything. I was hoping you could bring it in for me.”

“I could do,” she said, and John handed her the note and organized the evidence in his hands, avoiding touching areas of the apple where he’d leave pronounced prints.

“Right,” John said. “Uh, this is an explanation, and I need you to give these with it,” he handed her the note, the apple, and the core. “Like the note says, don’t eat the apple—somebody’s put poison in it.”

The woman eyed it. “Yeah? Like some sort of a fairy tale, huh?”

“Maybe a rather gruesome one. I guess they all are, aren’t they?” John shook his head, trying not to think of the fairytale clues Moriarty had left for Sherlock, the bread crumbs, the gingerbread man, his best friend framed and killed by stories, fake stories… “Look, um,” he shifted his weight. “Like I said, I really don’t want credit or anything, so if they ask who gave them to you, don’t describe me. Make something up—you know, ‘oh, some tall ginger bloke’ or whatever.”

“You ain’t the one who poisoned these, though?”

“No,” John shook his head. “Believe me on that.” He smiled and felt a stroke of guilt—who knew what kind of a difficult time this woman might experience in being implicated with this. Still—he couldn’t afford to be detained for questioning. Maybe at least that way she’d be warm for a while… “Look, thanks a lot. You’re helping a lot of people doing this.”

“Mm,” she said, standing and gathering the evidence into her arm before starting off. John kept an eye on her from a distance, following just enough to watch her walk into the building once she got to the next street.

Now was the matter of getting back to the Holmes’. John flipped through his remaining funds. He’d be leaving straight after this, and had no plans to come back early enough that he’d need some of this money; if he did, he’d probably have to take special measures anyway. From here—yes, he could definitely afford a cab back. Not all the way to their place—maybe to one of the farther points of young Sherlock’s tour, from which he could easily navigate himself there, if via a different route just in case little Sherlock was hanging around, hoping to see John again. John laughed a bit to himself—maybe he shouldn’t assume he was that much fun. Still, Sherlock had enjoyed himself, little Sherlock already being steeped in the less savory corners of human cruelty—accidental cruelty, like ignorant, inattentive adults; intentional cruelty, like bullies, like—like Jim Moriarty. _Like Carl Powers?_ John wondered, remembering Moriarty’s _game_ with Sherlock, trying to find out who he _was_. Sherlock had said that Moriarty had told him through the second poor sod—John’s words, not Sherlock’s—to be strapped to a bomb that Carl Powers had _laughed_ at him, and that was why Moriarty had done it. There were loads of people who had laughed at Sherlock though, John was sure—what stopped him? What stopped him from becoming… _that_?

John wasn’t sure when exactly Moriarty had killed Carl Powers—he would be there in May. Perhaps it was later in the year, and no one knew yet (or for a good long while, really) what kind of evil and ugliness hid inside young Jim. Or maybe it didn’t _hide_ —maybe it was obvious. Had Moriarty been the torturing-puppies sort? It was so easy to imagine him, John thought, helping people cheat on tests, framing people he didn’t like to make them look like they’d cheated on their girlfriends or boyfriends. But to have gone undetected for so long—maybe it was less obvious. Sherlock, after all, had been half a step away from testing poisons on his classmates—and not just _oh, John, sorry, just drugged your coffee a bit_ poisons, but deadly, _this-kills-ants-and-squirrels-but-does-it-kill-humans_ poisons. Who knew what else he did, before that day and before John met him, without someone to nudge him in the right direction? Had Sherlock ever—no, of course not. He and Moriarty turned out completely differently. Heads in the refrigerator were nothing compared to bombs in flats. Moriarty accomplished his work through lies; Sherlock’s work was truth.

Truth involved things like scientific data. Like testing things on people, things that hurt people. But if he ever had, he’d stopped, and Moriarty hadn’t. They were _different_. Case in point: Moriarty definitely, _definitely_ killed Carl Powers, during his adolescence no less. Sherlock was nothing like that. Of course they would have their similarities, that was why Sherlock had been so drawn in in the first place, drawn into that stupid, _stupid_ game. Moriarty liked to think himself like Sherlock—no, Moriarty liked to think Sherlock like _him_ —but for every similarity he could point out John could come up with ten differences. Those differences—they had to come from _somewhere_ , surely? Some fundamental quality that Sherlock had, and Moriarty didn’t.

_I could find out for myself, John thought. Even if I can’t see Sherlock, I could see what Moriarty was like around the time he was definitely a murderer._

“You could,” Sherlock-over-his-shoulder muttered.

 _Empirical evidence,_ John thought. _You’d like that_.

As John left the cab, he kept wary eye out for young Sherlock, lest he need to avoid him this time. It was the middle of the day, so it was unlikely—Sherlock would be in school. John smiled to himself as he remembered being led past here, around there, by earnest little Sherlock. There was no way that Sherlock, however confused about _good_ and _not good_ he was, could be anything like Moriarty—and since he had to go forward five years to find out what happened to Andrew anyway, he was going to find out for himself.


	9. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (VIII)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John held up his hands and walked slowly toward the man. “Are you Andrew?” He nodded toward the car crash, the bodies. “And are you… _him_?”
> 
> “Yeah,” he exhaled a puff of air. “That’s me.” He looked to the crash. “I’ve tried to save her a hundred times; I can’t. One of these times, I’m going to decide to get in that car and die with her.”
> 
> John felt his heart drop six notches, dipping into his belly.
> 
> “The only thing you can decide about the past is whether you want to die in it.”
> 
> John imagined Sherlock falling.
> 
> He imagined two crunches on the pavement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost: I am so, _so_ sorry for the wait. School happened, the Mathematical Proof series happened (is still happening!), an entire month passed without my even really noticing. The good news is, I have a _huge_ chunk of the next chapter already written, so the wait should be much shorter. And then, a special, slightly different chapter, of which I have also written a pretty significant portion. What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry for taking so long, and hopefully I can make it up to you with more rapid updates for chapters to come.
> 
> There is so much more stuff to come as we progress. Eep! I am completely psyched to share it with you and I hope you have as much fun reading it as I’m having writing it.
> 
> I have a few music notes (har har) at the end of the chapter.

Food was the first order of business, John decided when he got to 1989. His only lead was the previous coordinates of the time machine—and he knew exactly where that was from this first journey. It was certainly too far to walk, so he took a cab to a nearby street and stopped at a café on the way for a sandwich.

            Of course, John thought as he chewed, he couldn’t exactly go up to the door of the houses near where the machine had landed and ask for Andrew. Probably he’d just get the one from the past. But it was something—there _had_ to be a reason Andrew had come from that location.

            John took off at a steady march, feeling infinitely better with food in his belly and memories of the belladonna in the past (and, really, really _in the past_ ). When he approached the spot the machine had landed when he had gone back to 2008, he recognized something that looked like the house it had been in—not quite, but close. Sometime in the next twenty or so years, it appeared, additions would be made to the place. If the machine had gone to the same spot now that it had when he had taken it, he wouldn’t be in someone’s home, but rather… He peeked over the fence. _Ah_. He could just make out through the foliage a machine that looked exactly like the one he’d been using.

            A loud screech interrupted his observation, and John whipped around at a deafening crash that seemed to have happened further down the street. He approached the road cautiously and…oh.

            Oh.

            From a distance, he could see two mangled vehicles, shattered glass strewn over the street and smoke rising from the scene. A head of dark hair rested against the airbag; a young man had been thrown halfway through the windshield. The driver of the other vehicle was running his hands through his hair, and appeared about five seconds from hyperventilating. They were almost certainly dead, but maybe he could—

            From the corner of his eye, John glimpsed movement. Someone in the adjacent property was shuffling behind some bushes. _Oh, a crash and now a robbery, lovely,_ he thought, keeping tabs on the figure in his peripheral vision while maintaining his gaze in the direction of the crash, trying to decide whether it was his place to uphold his oath and see if there was anything left to be saved there or—

            A particularly noisy crashing sound returned his attention to the shady figure in the shrubbery, and when he looked over this time he could actually make out the person’s face. It was a man who was—who looked—it was the man thrown through the windshield farther down the street. That, or his twin brother.

            _Andrew?_ It was one possible explanation—this time, in this place, a likely one.

John held up his hands and walked slowly toward the man. “Are you Andrew?” he whispered as he got nearer. He nodded toward the car crash. “And are you him?”

            “Yeah,” he exhaled a puff of air. “That’s me. I guess you…well. You must somehow know about the machine.”

            “Your friend Brian sent me here to find out what happened to you,” John said. “From 2012. He misses you.”

            “I’m sure he does,” Brian said. “But I can’t go back.” He nodded toward the car crash. “That’s me. That’s going to be me, pretty soon.” John’s brows creased and he tilted his head, requesting an explanation. “I didn’t think I would want to, the first time I saw it happen, but…it’s going to. I know it.” He glanced across the street. “I’m over there, too. And I’m in the house. I’ve tried to save her in a hundred different ways. Something always stops me.”

            John felt his heart drop six notches, dipping into his belly. “You…”

            Andrew looked down at his hands. “I’m sure Brian told you why I built it. I came back here to save her. I can’t. And maybe I’ll try once or twice more, but I won’t. One of these times, I’m going to decide to get in that car and die with her. You just saw it happen.”

            “You could still change it,” John insisted. “Find the right—”

            “I can’t. It’s already happened. I don’t _have_ a choice. Everything that’s happened, has happened, and that’s it.” He took in a shaky breath. “The only thing you can decide about the past is whether you want to die in it. And I have—I will. And when I do, I’m going to send the machine back home, I suppose—I was thinking of doing it anyway, and now I know I will, because here you’ve used it.”

            John had recognized Brian’s eyes when he came to John with the case: the eyes of a man who had lost his best friend. “Brian will miss you, you know. He seemed…distraught.” A painfully obvious understatement, that was. _Right, just a little bit distraught, just like me—_

            Andrew continued to look at his fingers. “I know. But I have to do this.” He lifted his eyes to his body down the street. “I already have. And I—I don’t think I regret it. She was—my wife was—well. Since the day she died I spent my life trying to be with her again. I suppose I finally will.” John shuddered, imagined Sherlock falling, imagined two crunches on the pavement—“Tell Brian what you like,” Andrew continued, eyes reddening. “Say I’m sorry I didn’t leave a note. Say there was no way to stop me.” His lips creased into a frown that was meant to restrain more. “Destroy that machine the moment you get to where you’re going or he might try to come back and see. And he…he can’t. He’ll…” Andrew gulped down a lump.

            But there was no way—there was no way. Absolutely, John thought, no way that this was true. Andrew hadn’t tried hard enough, hadn’t found the one thing that could set all the changes in motion. He gave up—he was going to give up. John wouldn’t. He closed his eyes.

_Sherlock spread his arms and fell forward—_

_No._ No, that wasn’t happening.

            “You’re here for someone, too, aren’t you?” Andrew asked through a tight throat. “You didn’t just come here for me.” He looked John over. “Who are you? Why did Brian send you?” John opened his mouth, but Andrew continued speaking before he could explain. “Oh, I recognize you. You’re—you’re that detective bloke’s blogger, aren’t you? Watson. He thought you could investigate it for me, and you did. It’s your friend, Sherlock Holmes, am I right?”

            John could only nod.

            “Jumped off a building, didn’t he, just before the papers printed about him being a fake?”

            “He’s _not_ a _fake_ ,” John said through clenched teeth.

            Andrew’s gaze softened. “Oh,” he muttered. “Oh.”

            “You don’t believe me, do you? Of course not, _it was in the papers_ , is that it? Well sod this, I—”

            “I believe you,” Andrew cut in. “I get it.”

            “Get what?”

            “You want to stop him jumping,” Andrew said. “Because you love him.” John opened his mouth, shut it as Andrew continued. “You took the case because you thought you could use the machine, too, if it worked. You liked the idea of, like me, going back and saving the one person who mattered most to you.”

            John felt his nostrils flare as he took a few deep breaths to settle the burning that was threatening to run its way up his throat. “I’m going to kill Moriarty,” was all he could manage to say. “Before all that mess.”

            Andrew started to speak, but couldn’t seem to get words past his throat, and, after a time, gave up. He lifted his eyes to the crash, stared at his and his wife’s dead bodies for a minute. “Go home,” he finally murmured. “I know you think if you have enough will, if you _feel_ it enough, you can stop it. I felt the same way, the first time and the second time and the third…” He looked to John imploringly. “But you can’t. Go home.”

            _I really don’t have one without you, Sherlock_ , John thought. _That’s what you’ve done to me._ “I can’t.”

            “I have to go,” Andrew said, and slunk around to the fence, toward his time machine. “I’m sorry, John.”

            John swallowed down the lump in his throat. His hand was shaking.

 

 

 

            There were a thousand ways Andrew could have stopped it, John thought as he walked along the first street he’d ever walked down the first time he time traveled—briskly, briskly in the hopes that he could work the knots out of his guts, briskly because against all his medical knowledge something deeper and more driving was telling him that the only way to slow down the hot furnace in his chest that drove his heart was to wear it out.

            But walking wasn’t the way to wear one’s heart out.

            There were only two ways to do that: to cut it out (like Jim Moriarty, if he’d ever even had one in the first place) or to use it and use it and use it, to use it until it fell into pieces, to run it into the ground. To run it into the ground: run into the ground, like Sherlock. Sherlock had run his everything into the ground but John doubted it was for his heart, it was something else, there was something else that had driven him to do it and whatever it was, he’d stop it. But that’s what John would do and he knew it, now, especially seeing Andrew: he’d use his heart for everything it had; he’d use it until it broke down and with any luck by then Sherlock would be there, and Sherlock had mysterious ways of bringing John to life.

            There were a thousand ways Andrew could have stopped it that he didn’t try, that he probably didn’t try, that he probably didn’t have the courage to try.

            He could have gone back farther and stolen their car. He could have broken into their house the night before. He could have attacked himself and got himself sent to hospital and his wife would be there with him this morning, rather than in that car. He could have found the person who ran into her vehicle. He could have stolen _his_ car. He could have stolen a different car and hit him two streets back.

            John was going to kill Jim Moriarty. He was going to shoot him long before he’d ever become a problem. Not now, though—not now. Sherlock needed Carl Powers, he needed that to happen, needed that taste of detective work. Maybe Jim wasn’t so bad yet—he was, of course, awful; he _killed_ somebody—but then, John killed people—but not this young. No, Moriarty probably deserved it now, too—but that wouldn’t be fair. And maybe, maybe John wanted to see a spark of recognition in his face before he died; maybe he wanted Moriarty to know that John killed him, that John killed him for Sherlock.

            Sod what Andrew said. John would do it. Andrew just hadn’t tried hard enough. Maybe what he felt for his wife wasn’t enough to drive him to it: what was it, a simple romantic attachment? Something easy, something replicatable. John had loved four women in his life and he would never have gone this far to save any of them. Mary, maybe, Mary—no, not even Mary. He loved her dearly. He would travel back in time for her, and he would kill to save her—but he wasn’t sure about both, because killing to save her in the past meant changing something important about the future, didn’t it, and the future was precious and fragile and he met Sherlock on such a small, slight chance, and that was something he would never give up. Or would Sherlock still be alive if he and John had never met? No—no. He would have died by poison in 2010. He would have been kidnapped by a Chinese gang and shot. He would have been blinded by splashes and fumes of chemicals but for that John bought him a new pair of goggles; there were six other times he would have been shot; there were four times he may have starved to death and passed out god knows where; maybe he would have resumed smoking, maybe he would have gotten lung cancer; maybe he would have gone back to drugs if something took a bad turn.

            Whatever else John would change by killing Moriarty, as long as he still met Sherlock, as long as he still had Sherlock, it was fine. It was all fine.

            This _wasn’t_ the same as it was with Andrew. He just didn’t _try_. He didn’t have this burning furnace, or maybe he did but he used it all up _making_ his machine and had run it all out by the time he got here. From 1989 to 2012, researching, building the machine, testing it, traveling back—that was a long time: maybe he forgot. Maybe it was possible for him to forget. John would do better.

            “Be logical, John,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder.

John shuddered. _Don’t we have something more important to be doing right now?_ he thought toward Sherlock stiffly.

 

 

 

            Before John could do anything though, god, he needed a shower. On top of that, he hadn’t even the slightest idea where he could find Moriarty. Could he look him up in a phone book? It seemed an odd idea—certainly, in John’s present, such a thing was impossible, but he probably still lived with his parents—if he had those, anyway. Well: if they were still alive. But did he really have the same name, then?

            He didn’t have much of a lead besides that, though. It was anyone’s guess what part of the city Moriarty lived in—it was anyone’s guess whether he lived in the city at all, at this time. Probably, simply by virtue of having gone to school with Carl Powers…

            Of course, there _was_ Carl Powers, wasn’t there? Carl Powers wasn’t dead yet. John could look him up, find up what school he went to—but no, he was somewhere in Brighton, wasn’t he? That was what Sherlock had gotten from the shoes. And if he went to the same school as Moriarty, then Moriarty wasn’t in London, either, not unless he had the funds to randomly venture into the city. But then, the swim meet wasn’t all that far off—John remembered the date on the article that Sherlock had pinned to his great mess of a bulletin board during the time that Moriarty played his five pips game with Sherlock. It was in early June.

            “I wouldn’t have expected you to have remembered the case,” Sherlock had said to John as they hovered near the board. “You’d have been, what, about fourteen?”

            “Around there, yeah.”

            “You had other things on your mind than murder and mystery, I’m sure.”

            John had puzzled over whether that was Sherlock’s attempt to get John to talk about his past—about long before he and Sherlock met.

            “Girls and football, I’d suppose,” Sherlock said absently, tracing his fingers over the strings connecting his thumbtacks.

            It wasn’t entirely true: when John thought of being fourteen, he thought of Harry. It had been the beginning of a swooping downward spiral; it had been about when she really started drinking. It soured the taste of everything else that year, in that year before he was able to begin getting used to it, to that being the way things were. Every memory connected back to Harry then. He was assigned some Alka-Seltzer experiment for a science project; Harry took the tablets he was supposed to bring into school. He had a clarinet solo in the winter concert; his parents couldn’t make it because Harry was in hospital. John’s fingers had quivered through the solo, his overtired mouth not quite able to push breathy puffs of air past the reed (the fourth movement of _Music for Prague 1968_ , the best piece they ever played, in John’s opinion, while he was in the concert band). Better that he had missed the concert and somebody else taken the solo instead—but that was how it was. He made it through; the audience applauded; but all he could think about through the mayhem of the music was Harry.

            “ _Toccata and Chorale_ ,” Sherlock had said, and snapped John out of his thoughts. At John’s confused squint, Sherlock clarified, “That’s what you were just muttering the rhythm to under your breath. The fourth movement of _Music for Prague 1968._ Well-known wind ensemble piece. Why?” Sherlock narrowed his eyes at John, thinking, calculating, and then slowly rotated back toward the bulletin board.

            “Well, I—”

            But Sherlock turned to grab John by the shoulders. “Prague— _Czech!_ ” he nearly shouted, and then began rearranging his thumbtacks.

            “Right,” John had said, and he went back to his chair and opened up his laptop to do what he could in helping Sherlock find out who was rigging all these people up with bombs, who had killed Carl Powers.

John remembered the date because it was what he was staring at when Sherlock, still unwinding twine and rethreading it, said, “I’m sure your rendition wasn’t nearly as bad as you think it was.” He’d considered asking how Sherlock knew—but it was probably something like his face while he muttered it, flinching where he’d erred, something like his fingers twitching in time with ghosts of clarinet fingerings.

            “Thanks,” he said instead, staring at the digital scan of an article dated the eighth of June, 1989. _Eighth June, June eighth, six eight, sixty-eight._ He resumed searching the page for details.

            It was soon, then—less than a month off. How likely was it that Moriarty would commit a murder at a pool he’d never once scoped out before?

            John could go there to check things out—maybe there would be some clue that he had been there. At the very least, he could get a shower at the same time. And at least the pool would be easy to find—it was, after all, impossible to forget.

 

 

 

            He had never planned on paying admission to _this_ particular pool. John thought about it as he entered the changing rooms—he had never really intended to go back. But that wasn’t quite true: he had almost done so several times. He’d almost suggested it to Sherlock, but then held back. “Sentiment,” Sherlock would say. (John’s therapist would probably have said something else entirely.) For all that horror that had happened that night, John had left the pool with Sherlock feeling giddier than he’d thought possible. Yes, his legs were shaking; no, he didn’t know quite what to say. What was it, when a sort of confession was forcefully pulled from both you and your flatmate, swiftly, unexpectedly and all at once? Not that he’d had any idea of what it might have been, at the time; and maybe it was going to happen for real, unprovoked, on the sofa later, before John made his stupid crack about Bond. It _was_ a confession, though, John thought, from the both of them, from the way their eyes locked, from John’s grabbing Moriarty from behind and Sherlock’s solemn eyes whenever he looked at the glowing red dots on John’s chest. It was a confession: it said, _You’re something more._

But after Sherlock’s—after Sherlock was gone, John couldn’t bring himself to it. What was it? Not really anything besides a reminder of something that John would never be able to relive, would never be able to explore. But now—now it was different. John was going to save Sherlock, and maybe the first thing they’d do would be to return to the pool. “Let’s do this over,” John would say, and shrug on a coat, and wait, and see what Sherlock did.

            John stripped his clothes off and piled them up outside the showers, taking special care to hide his gun inside his jacket. If nothing else, he could come out of this not smelling quite so bloody terrible, even if he did have to use that godawful cheap public shower soap. Meanwhile, as he scrubbed off as best he could, he tried to tune his ears in to the voices around him—a couple of old men who’d just finished their laps, discussing lunch plans; one bloke whistling to himself.

            “—and _stop_ calling me _Jimmy_ ,” said another voice. John froze.

            His thoughts followed a progression approximating:

_That’s him._

            _My gun is with my clothes._

_No, I’m not going to shoot him._

_My gun is with my clothes._

_No, he’s not going to find it and shoot me._

_My gun is with my clothes_.

            He was close enough to being done anyway; he dashed from the shower and patted the majority of the water off of him with his jumper before yanking his clothes back on. The jumper could dry out while he wore it. John peeked furtively around a corner to the lockers, tucking his gun back into the back of his trousers and covering it with his jacket.

            Moriarty was hunched over, sneering at the man beside him.

            “You never had a problem with it before,” said the man, and now that John could see his profile, he was sure of it: this bloke was related to Moriarty somehow.

            Moriarty— _Jimmy_ —dropped the bag he was carrying. “You’re mistaking _fourteen_ with _four_ , father,” he answered drily, staring at the bag with scorn.

            “So I’m supposing you don’t like swimming now, either—”

            “No.”

            “—Jimmy, you used to be such a nor…such a _reasonable_ boy,” said the man— _Jimmy’s_ father. John tried not to stare too intently, to decipher what kind of person could have parented someone who grew up to be the monster Moriarty was. Was it an accident? Did Jim’s father, too, run some sort of crime ring? From several locker rows away John could detect little about him. Tired eyes, premature wrinkles—those could come from anything from a genetic predisposition to a tough life to a drug habit.

            Moriarty—Jim—apparently had no answer for his father.

            “You love swimming—have you forgotten? Come on,” he insisted, and John shifted his eyes away politely as the man changed into swimming garb. He straightened up his jumper and made his way over to one of the restroom stalls, ducking in but keeping an ear on the exchange.

            John could hear Jim kick at his bag. “You can’t _make_ me.”

            “No,” answered his father, “but your mum probably won’t be too pleased if she hears you didn’t get any exercise all weekend.”

            “As if you’ve _ever_ cared whether she’s pleased,” Jim answered sharply. “Sod the both of you. You know how often she asks after what I did while I was here?”

            Silence.

            “Get your swimming shorts on.” It came out as a low growl; John shivered to himself. He was reminded of a colonel he’d served with for a few months.

            Jim, apparently, complied; when John exited the stall a minute later, they were both dressed to swim. John washed his hands, watching them through the mirror.

            “Now this is nice,” said Jim’s father. If Jim’s icy features were any indication, he disagreed strongly. “I hear some of your mates from school are going to be up here swimming next month,” he continued, picking up his towel. He tossed another to Jim, who let it hit him and then crumple to his feet. “Guess we’ll have to come cheer ‘em on, won’t we?”

            If John had blinked, he would have missed it—Jim Moriarty’s face, several seconds after his father spoke.

            Before death, John thought, some peoples’ lives flashed before their eyes: but that was just the most obvious side of a coin. He supposed it meant something good for humanity, that the other was not a common phrase, a well-known phenomenon.  

            John knew it, though. He’d seen it a hundred times.

            Before one died, or maybe just when one _almost_ died, he would be frozen—or _feel_ frozen, brain in overdrive—as memories or feelings or ideas flooded through the brain and then the body, maybe one last time. That person would come the closest he ever could to understanding the meaning of life—however much or little that was.

            What John saw, what John had seen a hundred times before, was the opposite: the slowly dawning and then consuming realization of the ability to _take_ life, not as an abstract thought experiment, but in grasping that one _could_ do such a thing, at any time, under his own power. There was something inherently maddening about knowing, _knowing_ that any person nearby was also just one blinking realization away from being a killing machine, under the right conditions, with the right provocation, whether by brute force or planning: _anyone could kill_. And in this sweeping realization, this dawning of an unerasable shade of terror on one’s heart, lived the primal knowledge of the meaning of death.

            (“You _have_ just killed a man,” Sherlock said, on the second day they knew each other.

            “Yes,” John had said. “I know.” The meaning of death wasn’t much: it was as empty as the fate of dying itself, the mathematical complement to life as everything.)

            But that wasn’t the whole of it: that wasn’t the meaning of _dying_.

            Children, John thought, are incapable of understanding death—and then the moment finally comes, the knowledge and acceptance of _not-coming-back_. Some adults revert to the state of unknowing: some, for a lifetime. (John was still surprised when he checked his mobile and found no smartarse texts about typos Sherlock had found in his blog. John was still surprised when he stayed a night at 221B and heard no violin.) There is a second level, too, though: one most never need to reach, or not quite so young, anyway—understanding _dying_.

            John had watched life leave bodies more times than he wanted to count. He had _caused_ life to leave bodies a fair few times, too. What John saw on Jim’s face through the mirror was transcendence to this level, the monumental shift from death as a thing that happens to people to a thing people _do_ , to an act in and of itself, from _could happen_ to _can happen_. John had seen it on men who pulled a trigger and watched a target fall; he had seen it on doctors under whose own hands life, sometimes violently and messily, _actively_ , not _passively,_ left a body. John was sure someone else had seen it on him: years ago, lifetimes ago. Or, since right now it was 1989: perhaps less than ten years from now. He could watch it on himself, were he so inclined—but he wasn’t.

            John knew for Sherlock it had happened much later; John had seen it himself, or the end of it. He envisioned, but could not know for certain, that the first turn of the first cog was at the faint _click_ of the trigger of a landmine. Whenever it had happened, after Dr. Robert Frankland was blown into a thousand pieces and the light began to fade, Sherlock had turned to John, _John_ , who could only think _god, not again, not again_ until he saw Sherlock’s face: _god, not_ you _, not you_. Of course it was inevitable for Sherlock: of course. Surprising, maybe, that it had not happened already (or not: Sherlock dealt with the dead, the _then_ , the aftermath). But the panic in Sherlock’s eyes had flickered over John like strobing light, and John had wanted nothing more than to grab Sherlock by the shoulders and shake the machine out of its turning, take _dying_ away from Sherlock and leave him to what he was best at, _death_ and _life_ and _living_ , while John could take the dying, because he _could_ take it.

            (“You _have_ just killed a man.”

            “Yes. I know.”)

            He could take it until a point, anyway—until the dying was Sherlock’s.

            What John saw on Jim Moriarty’s face through the mirror was this transcendence, was this realization, and it was not at all like Sherlock’s panicked haze.

            For a half a second, Jim smirked.

            John turned away from the mirror to dry his hands.

            “We will,” Jim agreed, picking the towel up from around his feet and slinging it over his shoulder with what ought to have been an amicable smile at his father. “We’ll have to do just that.”

            “You like your school there? Got some friends?”  
            John watched a distasteful sneer pass over Jim’s face before he answered with a nonchalant, “Some.”

            “That’s good. Friends are good. That Newcomb chap still bother you about copying homework?” Jim’s father seemed proud of himself for remembering that small detail.

            “No.”

            “Oh. Good.”

            “Very.”

            “Yeah.” He reached for his towel and tucked it under his arm. “Don’t suppose you’ve got yourself a girlfriend yet?” John winced at this: it was more an accusation than anything else.  To John’s surprise, Jim winced, too.

            “Yes, wouldn’t want me to focus on academia, would we?” Jim finally said, apparently recovering some sharpness as he spoke. John had to hold back a wry laugh, had to avoid clearing his voice and pointing out that all Jim was thinking about right now, as of about twenty seconds ago, was murder—murder and crime, maybe petty, maybe selling answers or bribing teachers with threats of _I know who you’re screwing in the lounge during fourth period,_ but not for long—soon it would be hiring homicidal cabbies and bombing five floors of flats and framing fucking Sherlock Holmes as a fake. Jim Moriarty wasn’t focusing on academia; probably, _probably_ he was building his web already, its very beginnings. “Friends,” he’d said he had, but Moriarty definitely didn’t have _friends_. John would bet money on what kind of friends they’d be. Sherlock had no friends, or so John had been led to believe; Moriarty had “ _friends_ ,” which, John thought, from the distaste on Jim’s face as it was brought up, meant things like people he used to get things he needed. When bullies laughed at Jim, maybe he had someone to turn against them, with his slithering fist twisted around so many wrists, tugging them with blackmail or worse after drawing them in with lies and an amicable smile; Sherlock had probably had no such luxury and no such power. Sherlock walked home and got beat up by sixth form arseholes and, rather than lashing out, seemed to pretend it hadn’t happened, wasn’t important. Perhaps he truly didn’t care, or perhaps he internalized the insults. Jim Moriarty, with the flicker of realization through his eyes, with the sudden drive to kill, like today, like right now, at _this_ age, was more… _reactive_. After a pause, Jim added, “Suppose I ought to get to finding some prissy bitch to knock up instead of going to university, oughtn’t I?”

            John turned away from the mirror at the deliberate flex of Jim’s father’s jaw, at the ball of his fist, at the way his eyes darted around the locker room.

            “You know what, though,” Jim spoke again, his voice higher, this time, brighter, as he threw his towel over his shoulder and took off toward the doorway to the pool, and _that_ shift of _that_ voice in the echoes of _this_ pool made John shudder, “I _do_ know one of the blokes swimming in that competition next month…”

            Jim’s father breathed, John could hear, slowly, for several seconds, before following his son. “Do you?”

            “He’s in my maths class…” was the extent of what John heard, and the extent of what he would hear unless he wanted to risk walking out into the pool area fully clothed without being noticed. Probably a bad idea: god knew _what_ would happen if Jim saw and recognized him years later.

            John sighed and sat back down on one of the benches, leaning back to rest his head against the wall. _Jim_ Moriarty—he shouldn’t, of course, be surprised by the idea of Moriarty with a family (in whatever state it was in). Sherlock, after all, had his own family, had been a child, was about to begin becoming a detective, soon, after Moriarty killed Carl Powers. All this time—Moriarty, with his spark of the knowledge of dying, slowly turning London, the world, whatever he touched, to chaos (or maybe, John thought, to order, a well-oiled machine), committing the crimes and inciting the crimes and funding the crimes that Sherlock would solve—some of the crimes that Sherlock would solve, at least—making him, and then unmaking him. Not that Sherlock could be unmade—he could never be unmade. John would make sure of it.

            That was why he was here, wasn’t it? He would have done so either way—would’ve continued insisting that his stories were the truth, that Sherlock Holmes was real; maybe it would be just him and a handful of others, in the end, but if it came to it, if John was the only one left who knew that Sherlock wasn’t, was _never_ , a fake, it would burn on inside him. He could donate his chest cavity to the truth, make it Sherlock’s. Could a mind palace fit inside one’s lungs?

            “Don’t be stupid,” he heard Sherlock-over-his shoulder mutter. John felt a tug in his heart.

            Maybe there was a point in Jim Moriarty’s life when he had been different, but even this young, John could see that he was little more than a miniaturized version of his future self, already working his way up to the monster he would become.

            But he wasn’t a murderer yet, imminent though it was.

            He was other things, though, John suspected. A premeditated murder like Carl’s death seemed like it would require some working-up to. What was Jim already doing? John found he didn’t care to find out the details, based on what he’d already seen; and it hardly mattered, now. Doubtless he was already manipulating people, learning how to feign expressions and how to lie and get away with it. John tilted his head forward, resting it in his hands as he thought.

            Sherlock did the same thing, though, didn’t he? Like a switch, three seconds into a sob story and weeping already, and then before John could process what was going on, was striding away with the facts in his brain and deductions rattling along, funneled through John’s ear as he followed. It helped having someone to talk to, Sherlock had said—but so far as John could tell, and based on anything anyone had said to him before—

            (“You know him better than I do,” John had said to Lestrade, and,

            “I’ve known him for five years, and no, I don’t,” said Lestrade.)

            —Sherlock had never _had_ anyone to talk to; not like that, anyway. How would he know?

            But he did it all the same, once John was there, and John was all in before he’d even known it, had spent all of a day between _potential flatmate_ and _friend and assistant_. Sherlock had started introducing him as a friend so very early on, for a man who didn’t seem to have any friends. John didn’t mind (though he tried correcting it a few times, trying on different hats, seeing what felt better, and yes, in the end, _friend_ was so much better than _colleague_ )—it felt, oddly, perfectly natural, as if he and Sherlock were two souls picking up where they left off in a previous life. Maybe they were, maybe that was why Sherlock was so fantastic, maybe that was why John was time-traveling to save him. Maybe they had known each other for a hundred years. Maybe time was no object. After this? John would believe it. He’d believe any of it. He’d go back a hundred years and over his shoulder he’d hear, “Pass me that tobacco sample, would you?” like nothing had changed.

            And that was one thing that Sherlock was that Moriarty wasn’t: real. Himself. Always. When he acted, when he flipped the switch and wept, he stopped as soon as he got the information he needed, as soon as the cogs were unstuck and churning again. “I see. Thank you,” he’d say, maybe a bit coldly, to a very confused wife or husband or child or friend, and that was that, and he was Sherlock again. No games—never games. Only, John could imagine Sherlock saying, the Work. Sometimes it was a game, and a game he relished, but Sherlock navigated through it like the protagonist of a novel, the lens of truth, the only honest and reliable voice. When he lied, when he deceived, he took off his hat at the end and bowed while the police made the arrest. He told the victim of his deception: “See? That’s not me at all. You’ve been fooled, but it’s fine, because I’m Sherlock Holmes, and the world is a better place because for two minutes you thought I was someone I wasn’t.”

            John was waiting to hear it; but maybe he never would. He hadn’t, after all, been fooled. If Sherlock had stayed on that rooftop for a minute more, would he have extracted what he needed, would he have found the solution and laughed into his mobile and said, “You know that’s not true, John, but thanks for playing along, I’ve figured out how to fix it now”? He’d step away from the ledge and John would rush into the hospital, and they’d meet in the stairwell or the lift—and then what? God. Anything. Anything that happened then would be better.

            But Moriarty—who knew who the real Moriarty was? A bundle of misconceptions and layers of disguises, disguises that meant something and disguises that didn’t, some that came off and some that stayed on. When he spoke in singsong, was that him? When his voice became hard and sober, was that the singsong falling off, or being covered up, or both, or neither? Moriarty left the stage exactly as he came on, and never emerged for the final bow smiling, out of character, back to himself; he never emerged for the final bow. Whatever had happened to Moriarty, he had not stepped forward to claim credit for the final act. (If that’s what it was, and that _had_ to be what it was, didn’t it?)

            Maybe what John had seen now was as real and pure and true as Jim got; it probably was. Feelings still peeked through; he was still, at least, a human. This was sometime before he had buried that inconvenience. Sherlock, for all he complained about _people_ and their _people_ habits and the inconvenience of humanity, Sherlock masked his own under only a thin layer, for protection more than anything. What else could he do, being called _freak_ on a daily basis? (Probably, John thought, Jim Moriarty was, too. Maybe that was how it started; maybe they diverged because Sherlock had a more understanding family; maybe the simple fact was that Sherlock was good, or at least not-bad, and Jim was not-good, was bad. Sherlock might have poisoned animals out of curiosity; Sherlock never poisoned classmates out of spite.)

            Sherlock seemed confident he could shed his humanity, but John knew, and he assumed Sherlock knew, too, that while Sherlock was so fantastic and extraordinary and unbelievable he was also human. When John met him he was the first three of these; and then Sherlock had tricked John’s body out of its limp, and then the door to 221B shut and they laughed, and then John shot a man and Sherlock watched John feign innocence, aglow with awe, and they giggled. They went to a Chinese restaurant; John watched Sherlock order hot and sour and slurp it, flecks of it landing on Sherlock’s cheeks and fingers. Sherlock became, suddenly, human—more human than anyone. He looked up at John through shy eyes and every layer, every scrap of his showiness and his preening and pride (equally honest, and, true, rightly deserved) had fallen away. When John thought about it now, Sherlock had looked a bit like a child, like the Sherlock he’d just seen not so long ago, unsure and so surprised by someone sitting across from him, willingly basking in his talents and in the quiet, silvery light that emanated from those crystalline eyes, willingly sharing his company.

            Sherlock liked having someone to talk to, and that’s what John was for him. That’s what John had been for him, too, when he had visited him, now (then), in his childhood. And god, he hoped it made a difference—whatever sliver of a difference there needed to be, to calm Sherlock’s tears from the rooftop (were they tears flipped on like a switch? That, John thought, might be worse), to make him breathe and step back and know, _know_ , that whatever he needed to do, why-ever he needed to do it, John could help him, they could make it together. He was worth so much more than whatever the hell had made him jump.

            Maybe, John thought, he had made a difference. How would it change Sherlock? God. Maybe Sherlock would take a completely different path, would never meet John. Maybe John hoped Sherlock hadn’t changed at all.

            The fantastic thing about time, though, about time being no object, for him, was that he could travel through it, and see. He could make sure. He could watch. Maybe later, maybe in university—maybe Sherlock’s days would be a bit less rough; maybe he’d stayed away from drugs, or quit sooner, or used lighter. Maybe arseholes like Sebastian Wilkes didn’t hate him, or maybe, if they did, Sherlock’s eyes wouldn’t flit down guiltily, would instead shine with a bit more resilience as he held his head up and continued on doing what he did best.

            John could go to sometime before the second time Mycroft saw him, to avoid him meddling; he wouldn’t be looking for John then. Mummy Holmes would, it appeared, keep John and his machine safe. He could just…check up on Sherlock. Make sure he was doing okay, maybe doing better. He could make sure he hadn’t messed anything up too badly. He could check on Sherlock, and then he would do it, he’d do what Andrew couldn’t do, and save Sherlock. Couldn’t he? If Andrew was right, he couldn’t change a thing—Sherlock would jump no matter what, no matter if he seemed better off, happier, more at peace with himself, or not. If Andrew was right, maybe John couldn’t have helped him at all, that one time, speaking to him in his childhood—like Andrew trying to stop the car crash that happened every time. If Andrew was right, Sherlock would jump either way—but Andrew wasn’t right; Andrew hadn’t tried hard enough; John would save Sherlock. He’d find Moriarty, after the pool, after going back to the flat, after Sherlock had looked to John with the same painfully human eyes and almost said something so _important._ John would kill Moriarty, would find Sherlock, would wrap his arms around him and maybe break his ribs a little in the process.

            “What was it going to be?” he’d ask. “What were you going to say?”

            And Sherlock would say it, and whatever it was, John would be grateful. He’d let Sherlock go slowly, feel Sherlock’s ribs expand back into place. Sherlock would say it, and John would nod, and from there—from there the mystery and the adrenaline and the adventure would start again, because Sherlock would be as safe as Sherlock ever was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](http://youtu.be/pXpvUrUsXog) is the rendition of Music for Prague 1968 (Movement 4) that I listened to for this chapter. (Wanted to find one performed by high-schoolers for optimal imagination of young!clarinetist!John.)
> 
> I think I've already mentioned it, but the title for this (rather long) section of the fic, "Through Galaxies of Apple Trees," is from a line from Ludo's [Laundry Girl](http://youtu.be/GuW5ox_pJUA) (sorry for the not-so-great quality), and I chose that song because I think it reflects a lot of aspects of this part of the story (and, in fact, helped shape the apple case). I could honestly go on for pages and pages about how I see bits of this song fitting this section--but I won't. If you've got a spare moment, give it a listen, and think of it over the next couple chapters. :)


	10. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees (IX)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _This is your life, John Watson,_ he said to himself. _You are talking to your future girlfriend about your future friend who you’ve gone back in time to—_  
>  Wait.  
> You are talking to your future girlfriend.  
> Oh, no. You didn’t, did you? You did. _Watson, you sly dog, you set yourself up with this woman._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Sorry for the delay! (Again!) Aside from currently being in England (and going to France tomorrow for the next half week or so), I've also been working on a couple of other things. Namely, a fic with [this summary](http://toasterfish.tumblr.com/post/37019854939/the-mad-lib-results) produced via Mad Lib by some of my Tumblr followers (for the curious, it is looking to be a Molly/Irene post-Reichenbach futuristic-space-AU love story, and I'm not kidding)...and I've also been brainstorming for a dark!John AU, which I cannot guarantee will happen, but am 95% certain. Don't worry, though; this fic won't be forgotten. There is too much juicy stuff you haven't gotten to yet for me to forget about it. ;)  
> (2) Lyrics at the beginning are applicable to this chapter but also the next one. I have a different set for the next one, though, so.  
> (3) I said somewhere toward the beginning that this story has five parts and two interludes. I should mention that I don't plan for any of the other parts to be nearly as long as this one! The next chapter will be the first interlude. :)

_Our lips were heavens opened up  
_ _You fit like coffee to my cup  
_ _Through galaxies of apple trees you were my first clean love  
_ _And in my last clean shirt I turned around and you were gone  
_ _I never got to say goodbye  
_ _Darling, don’t you see that I’ve found my place in the galaxy?  
_ _My love, please tell me, were you real or just a dream?_ _  
_ —from “Laundry Girl” by Ludo

 

           John decided that springtime in 2002 was as good a time as any. Sherlock might still be in university now, or shortly out if he wasn’t. And besides: this was before the first time Mycroft met John; no need to worry about popping up in his radar, being swept or wrestled into a limo or something equally ridiculous.  
  
            He had a few things to do first, though, before he could check up on Sherlock, before he could make sure that he hadn’t royally fucked up the past—like figure out where Sherlock lived, and maybe get a bite to eat. Maybe, he thought, now that he was back into a time where the internet was easily accessible, find out whether his help on the case with the belladonna-laced apples had led to a more favorable conclusion.  
  
            The library John opted to visit before he did anything else was one he knew well. It was, for one, the place he had occasionally visited when he needed to get out of the flat, when Sherlock was up to something ridiculous in which John wanted no part but which he also knew better than to try to stop (when he got working on his experiments, Sherlock gained too much momentum for John to hold back, like a train, like leaping in front of a train). He’d had a few other memories there, too: it was where he had gone to spend time when he couldn’t stand 221B any longer for very different reasons, for loneliness and a lack of loud noises or fumes or violin-plucking. He’d met Mary there, too, yet for all the strangeness of that encounter—or maybe because of it—the library reeked of Sherlock, of avoiding Sherlock, of missing Sherlock, of, oddly, finding Sherlock—or a piece of him, at least. The library had become his bunker when evenings with Lestrade became too uncomfortably silent after Sherlock’s death, when John needed quiet that no human being—no _living_ human being, anyway—could sense that he needed.  
  
             _God,_ John thought as he took the computer tucked far in the back corner of the library, _it’s good to be out of the eighties_. With any luck, his tip to the police was enough for them to go on to eventually get the bloke apprehended.  
  
            It’d be even easier to do something like that now, John thought, with the advances in genetics. It was a wonder a similar case hadn’t arisen.  
  
            John rubbed his chin for a moment before querying _Bachmeier belladonna apple_. Several results came up—mostly articles, even a few forum posts referencing the event, but not detailing it. Finally, he stumbled across a more detailed piece.  
  
             _Nolan Bachmeier, arrested for two counts of murder on March 10, 1984…_ John paused. Two? He’d definitely killed more than two. He read on and found that, indeed, Bachmeier was suspected of more, but there had been no way to prove the others; in one of the victims’ long-abandoned flats they had even found the remains of what was probably the genetically altered apple, but the defense claimed it too deteriorated to determine that it had contained belladonna at all, and argued that any remaining traces could have been just as likely to have resulted from the apple’s proximity to a pile of green and sprouting potatoes. “Too deteriorated, my arse,” he mumbled to himself.  
  
            “Sorry?” asked someone behind him, and John quite nearly launched himself out of his chair in shock before whipping around to face a woman carrying a box full of books. He gawked, and then glanced back at the screen and scratched his head to keep himself from gawking some more.  
  
            It was Mary.

            “Do I know you?” she finally asked.  
  
            John could not stop an, “Oh, god,” from falling from his mouth unchecked, and, at the way she shrunk back slightly to the reaction said, “Sorry, no, that’s not what I mean. Uh. Hello. No. You don’t know me.” He snapped his mouth just in time to hold back a _yet_.  
  
            Mary, though, seemed to have caught on. “You could’ve made a pick-up line out of that one,” she laughed, and rested the box against the table next to John’s computer.  
  
            “And I regret to have wasted the opportunity,” John said, smiling, quite nearly forgetting that this Mary was not, precisely, yet, _his_ Mary. But—but she was—  
John peered into the box—piles of unorganized books, a few journals; not yet printed, he noticed, with the library’s name, not yet stickered with a barcode. “You st—you work here?”  
  
            “I s’pose,” she said. “You can’t really call it work if you love it, though, can you?”  
  
            “I’ve got a friend who’d disagree.”  
  
            _This is your life, John Watson,_ he said to himself. _You are talking to your future girlfriend about your future friend who you’ve gone back in time to—_  
  
 _Wait._  
  
 _You are talking to your future girlfriend._  
  
John couldn’t hold back a smirk.  
  
            _Oh, no. You didn’t, did you? You_ did _._  
  
“Well, all right then, we’ll take the easy way and say I do.” She craned her neck and looked at John’s screen. “Ooh, I think I was about nine when that happened. Are you doing research for a story?”  
  
            “Mary,” he said, before he could think about it, still inwardly smiling. _Watson, you sly dog, you set yourself up with this woman._  
  
            “My god! You _do_ know me!”  
  
            John cleared his throat. “That makes it sound weird.”  
  
            “Did we go to school together? Were you that kid with the funny ears who—”  
  
            “Nothing like that,” said John, and then he sighed. “Actually, really, absolutely nothing like that.”  
  
            “Huh,” she pulled a chair from the nearest desk. “I don’t _think_ you’re a stalker…or you’re not a very subtle one, if you are.”  
  
            “Not a stalker. Uh. But I do sort of feel like one right now.”  
  
            “You _do_ know my name, that’s one more than I’ve got on you.”  
  
            “John,” John said. He shifted in his seat and leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice. “Okay, this is going to sound worse before it sounds better. Er, Mary—the short version, the, er, the creepy-sounding version, is that I know you, but you don’t know me.”  
  
            “I’d love to hear the less creepy version of that,” she said cautiously. John watched her size up the box of books just to her right, saw her calculating the most efficient way to stand and grab something heavy at the same time. Warmth washed over his heart; that was Mary. That was the loveliest thing about Mary. She wasn’t helpless; she was capable. She was ready. That was Mary.  
  
            John took in a slow breath. “Right. Uh.”  
  
            Because the thing about Mary Morstan was that she had been so _unlikely_ , had cropped up at just the right moment, and then she was so— _understanding_. John bit his lip and held back another smile. He’d told Mary he was going to a rubbish heap to find a time machine. She’d said, “Good luck.” He’d told Mary about the case. She’d said, “Bit far-fetched, isn’t it?” –But she didn’t believe that at all, did she? Because she knew.  
  
            She _knew_.  
  
            “Um, okay. I’ll just…I don’t know where to start. So, I actually have met you before. But it was in…” John rubbed at his temples for a moment, “it was in 2011.”  
  
            She raised a skeptical eyebrow, but leaned in farther.  
  
            “I’ve been time-traveling.”  
  
            “Prove it,” she demanded.  
  
            John pulled out his mobile, and she held her hand open, palm-up. He set it there. “That model’s from 2011, I think. Er, I left from 2012. February.”  
  
            She turned it over in her hands, traced her fingers over the screen. “They get bigger, do they?” she said, her disbelieving frown melting a little. “Mobile phones?”  
  
            “Touch screens are the in thing.” He swiped his finger across the front, keyed in his password to demonstrate, and raised an eyebrow, waiting.  
  
            Mary glanced up at John’s computer again, still turning the phone over in her hands, tracing her thumb over it like a worry stone. “You’re looking up something that happened in 1984…”  
  
            “I was there.” John nodded toward the photo of Bachmeier. He took in a slow breath before deciding to add, “You can’t tell anyone this, but I’m the person who gave them the tip that led them to him.”  
   
           “No,” she breathed, “no way. I don’t believe it.”  
  
            “I went to his house, and I found the shed where he kept the apples, and I, er, I sort of…tested one. It was _definitely_ poisoned.”  
  
            “This was the one where he gave the apples to just pretty, young women, right?”  
  
            “What, familiar with all the serial killers of the nineteen-eighties?” Sherlock was: he once listed off all of the nineteen-eighty-ones to John as punishment for moving his mold-and-tuber experiment out of the light before it had gotten the required dosage. He’d listed the name and the method and the number of victims, pausing after each method and squinting at John, and then pausing again at the number of victims, as if mentally adding one to the number. It was, John decided, one of the absolutely most childish things Sherlock had ever done, which was saying quite a lot. Still, childish was better than dangerous or murderous.  
  
            “No.” Mary snickered. “No, just—well. I thought you were looking it up because you were writing a story, because that’s what I did. I was just searching for people who’d died by belladonna...”  
  
            “Mm,” John said. He’d never gotten to read anything of Mary’s, the novellas she wrote in her spare time. She jokingly insisted that they were too mature for him; he never pushed the issue. Even if he’d spent the preceding year and a half living with someone who had no sense of privacy, it didn’t mean he had any right to inflict that lifestyle upon anyone else. God, and he _wouldn’t_. But he—of all things—missed it.  
  
            “So,” she finally handed John’s mobile back to him. “You travel back in time and save innocent young women from horrible deaths at the hands of serial killers. That’s very noble of you.” She smiled. “And you say you know me in the future?”  
  
            “Yeah.”  
  
            “Do you save me?”  
  
            “Afraid not,” John said. “But uh,” he cleared his throat. “Maybe more the other way around.”  
  
            “Do I get to be part of a shoot-out?” She leaned forward. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a shoot-out.”  
  
            John shifted forward a bit, putting his mobile back in his pocket and taking her hand. “You really believe me, don’t you?”  
  
            “Well, of course it seems a bit ridiculous,” she shrugged. “I mean, really ridiculous. Unbelievable, actually. But…there’s your phone, you knew my name, not that that’s really…and you look at me like…” Mary looked away, staring off into the distance, or perhaps simply at John’s computer screen once more. “S’pose it sounds crazy like that, just a mobile and some really stupid details to go from. You could just be a stalker who just happens to have access to unreleased mobile phone models. But you’re not that kind of bloke, are you? And look, in your pocket there,” she reached forward and gingerly grabbed a piece of paper, “you’ve got a receipt from a sandwich shop from 1989.” She folded it up and tucked it back into the pocket. “It would’ve faded by now if you’ve just had it stuffed in your pocket for that long, not that you could’ve possibly owned that jacket twenty years ago.” She tilted her head at John’s lopsided grin. “I guess it could be that you somehow got that phone, and you had someone change the date in a cash register and had that receipt printed off just in the hopes I would walk by while you were stuffed into the corner over here and believe your crazy story about time-travel.”  
  
            “Oh, you mean I didn’t have to go to all this effort of actually time-traveling? What a shame.” John pulled out the receipt again and looked at it.  
  
            “That restaurant doesn’t even exist anymore,” Mary added quietly, before smiling again. “It would’ve been a lot of effort either way.”  
  
            “So you believe me because of my receipt?”  
  
           “I never actually _said_ I believe you,” she corrected, watching John with quirked lips as he looked at the receipt and then put it away. “I’ll find out for sure in a few years, won’t I? Unless, of course, you’d like to show me your time machine,” she winked, leaning in closer to John.

            “God, I love you,” John whispered.  
  
            Mary drew back, and John flushed. “You…”  
  
            “It’s not…” John started. “Christ, I’ve ruined it, haven’t I?”  
  
            “Ruined…?” Mary seemed to be chewing over the word, her shocked expression settling into a frown as she opened her mouth.  
  
            “Mary,” John said before she could speak, and he reached for her hand. She pulled it gently away. “Er. Look. You asked if I saved you, and I said it was the other way around, and I meant it. When you find me, I’m going to be in an awful state. And…I’m going to really, really need you.”  
  
            “Why?” Her cheeks were burning red.  
  
            “I don’t think I can tell you everything,” John searched his brain for the right thing to say. “But...” He shook his head. “Well, I mean, I hope I can change it. But I’m not sure how what I do now affects things, so in case I need to do this to make sure I _can_ come back and change it…” He licked his lips. “Something…terrible…happened to my best friend.” John looked at her hand. “I thought of some pretty awful things after that. But then I met you, and you were…are…amazing. God, the things you helped me through.” He took a deep breath. “I needed you so much that I told you about all of this right now, so that, if you’re willing, you can come into my life just the way you have to, and help me.”  
  
            “So when I meet you later, you won’t know me,” Mary said blankly, still processing. “You’ll be…well, a wreck, I guess, and…”  
  
            “I’ll be sitting over there, actually,” John’s breath caught as he nodded toward one of the plush chairs even farther out of the way than he already was. “I came to the library to get some fresh air…I had to get out of the flat. I think I was thinking of trying to hide in the library and sleep there overnight,” he mused. “Didn’t want to go to my sister’s, wasn’t really anyone else I could…” He coughed and averted his eyes from her, staring instead at the box of untagged books. “Anyway, I’ll be in a chair over there. And you’ll be somewhere else in here, bringing in some donations, sorting through them.  
  
            “You’ll find this…this piece of sheet music.”  
  
            Mary stared, rapt.  
  
            “It won’t have an author, so you’ll need more information on it.” John pulled the receipt back out of his pocket, almost numbly, glancing around the library, just now puzzling it out, just now realizing it. “But instead of calling the person who donated it, our landlady, Mrs. Hudson…for some reason…” he paused, let himself be mystified again, as he was the first time it happened, “you’re going to call me.” John leaned forward, let the breath be sucked from his lungs as he took a pen from behind Mary’s ear. He scrawled his number on the back of the receipt. John swallowed. “And you’ll hear a mobile just over there, walk closer, and you’ll look around that bookshelf, and it’ll be me, sitting there, thinking of not answering it.”  
  
            “How rude of you not to put it on silent,” was all Mary could say, taking the receipt from him and folding it carefully before tucking it into her pocket.  
  
            “I’ll pick it up eventually, and then you’ll say something completely ridiculous, and I’ll hear it twice: once from the phone, and once from you, here.” John gulped down the memory. “And I’ll look up and see you, and you’ll bring the sheet music up to me.”  
  
            “And then?”  
  
            “I think you can take it from there,” John breathed.  
  
            “And we…date?” she asked hesitantly.  
  
            “Yeah. Er. I’ll let you…figure everything out.”  
  
            “I do like surprises.”  
  
            John smiled. “I know you do.” He shifted, considered pulling away from Mary as their knees bumped together, but he held his position. “We’ve been dating for quite a while. And, well…one night I’ll tell you this unbelievable story about someone with a time machine, and I’ll go to a rubbish heap to find it, and I’ll go back in time, and here I am.” He thought of Andrew’s words from 1989 and sobered slightly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen before I go back. I might…I might be able to help my friend. I don’t know if that will change everything or…or if I’m going to make the universe implode, or what, but…if it is even remotely humanly possible, I swear I will come back to you and tell you what happened. I can set what time I want to go to, so…to you it’ll seem like I was only gone a few hours, or a day or two…” He shook his head. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Sorry. I don’t even know if you…er. Well. You didn’t exactly sign up for this, did you? I’m just…asking. If that would be okay.”  
  
            “It’s a bit to take in,” she said, obviously still in awe.  
  
            “That’s not it,” John ran a hand through his hair. “Well, that’s not entirely it.”  
  
            “Good job I’m already sitting, then.” She gave a dazed laugh. “What is it?”  
  
            “You’re, um…I think…I can say…without a doubt…the most fantastic girlfriend I’ve ever had. You will be,” he amended, and added with a small smirk, “and I mean that in every way you can possibly interpret it.”  
  
            “Golly.” She blushed.  
  
            “I think that before this time machine thing came up…I was going to marry you. But…”  
  
            “But…?” she reached forward, laid a hand on John’s hesitantly as his face twisted through a pained grimace. “But…you came back in time to help your friend. Was your friend…”  
  
            “I don’t know,” John shook his head, nearly choking on his own confusion. “I…Mary, if I can save him, I…I want to warn you that…I’m going to need some time to think. And if I can save him—when I save him—I’m going to…to move back in with him. Whatever else he is, and hell if I know anymore, he’s…Christ, there’s no way for this to not sound bad now that I’ve told you about me dating you.”  
  
            “You love him more than anything else,” Mary guessed. “Is that about right?”  
  
            “Yeah—yes. I mean, I’m not…well. I don’t know.”  
  
            “Yes, you do,” she said softly. “It’s fine. You know, I once had a boyfriend I never had sex with.”  
  
            “Well, that’s not…” John started, and then paused, his eyelids fluttering as he thought about it. He met her eyes, sober, sincere. “Do you think you can date me, knowing that I’ll leave thinking of proposing and come back…”  
  
            Mary seemed to be steeling herself. “Do you love me, when you’re dating me?” she asked, squaring her shoulders.  
  
            “God, yes. I do right now. But it’s not,” he struggled for words, “not really…the same as…”  
  
            “Of course it’s not.” She bit her lip. “God, I dunno. I only just met you, how can I know? I might change my mind.”

           John nodded. “Right…er…yes.” What would happen if she did? Would he…would he not take the case? Would he…would things go bad, and worse, and worse instead? If they did, would he blip out of existence? But Mary couldn’t just _not…_ he had obviously set this up before.  
  
           “I mean, what if I don’t want to stay here?” she said. “I might get a better offer. Become a…well, an actual librarian, rather than an assistant librarian. You’re not saying I should…I can’t just…stay here for…I mean, what if this is just some joke? I’m not going to stay here just in case you’re for real,” she finished decisively.  
  
           “Oh,” John said. Right—Mary had mentioned this. It made sense, now—it had come out so odd, when she’d said it. She’d said, on one of their dates, “I should’ve known I’d never get the librarian position,” and then, when John had asked when she’d applied for that, she’d said, “Oh, years ago, must’ve been five or six.” When he’d asked why it was suddenly on her mind now, she’d been silent about the matter, and then made something up about thinking of applying again. (She tapped her index and middle fingers in a rapid alternating pattern when she lied.) “No, er—I mean—you don’t—“ she _did_ have to believe him, she _did_ , but pushing back against Mary’s will was never, _ever_ a good idea, “I mean, I guess…it would be stupid of me to think you’d change your life around this. Just…er…you know. That’s how it happened for me, when it happened to me, and…I thought…I don’t really know how all this works, but…”  
  
           Mary’s eyebrows rose.  
  
           “Time seems like it’s kind of…sticky. Like it wants to keep on happening the way it did,” John tried to explain. He thought of Andrew. “Things just want to try to be how they…how they are, I guess. And that’s what happened to you before. Er, later.”  
  
           “Okay,” Mary breathed in and out a few times. “Okay, yeah. I see.”  
  
           John nodded, and then felt a laugh bubble up his throat. Mary raised her eyebrows. “I can’t blame you. How ridiculous must this sound? You’ve gotta be…creeped out.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re more than ten years younger than me right now, for god’s sakes, and at your age—what are you, early twenty-something?—that’s quite a difference.”  
  
           The corners of Mary’s lips tipped up again. “Well, up until about fifteen minutes ago, you really weren’t my type, but, I dunno, John, Mister Time-Traveling Hero with a Tragic Past, trekking through space-time against all odds to save the man he loves,” she rattled off, “seducing and setting himself up to date strikingly clever and beautiful women in his time of need to help him overcome his woes, and all the while solving crimes and eating sandwiches at historical sandwich shops…” She grinned, “I guess if I run into you about ten years down the road I might change my mind.”  
  
           John grinned back. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be flattered or insulted.”  
  
           “Flattered,” Mary said, “definitely.”  
  
           “Yeah?”  
  
           “Yeah. I mean, if I decide to date you, even knowing you’re gonna be totally miserable at first, and even knowing of the inevitable fate of being abandoned for a better man than I,” she winked, “that’s pretty flattering, isn’t it?”  
  
           “Well, when you put it that way…”  
  
           “But I haven’t made my mind up yet, of course.”  
  
           “Right.”  
  
           “And I’m not gonna stop dating in-between,” she said, “and if I already have a special someone and you turn up, I am _not_ breaking up with them for you,” she listed off. “Even if you _are_ a time-traveler.”  
  
            “Of course.”  
  
            “Good.”  
  
           John felt like sun and crisp morning air, like marshmallows melting in a cup of hot chocolate. It was nothing like puffs of winter from his mouth as he ducked under crime scene tape; it was nothing like the crackling ozone of being a lightning rod. It wasn’t like that—it wasn’t a thing like that—but it was still, given that, rather nice. Mary’s eyes sparkled; she knew, she didn’t mind.  
  
            “Can I kiss you, John? You know, bit of a…test run? See if I like it?”  
  
            John ran a hand through his hair and chortled. “You know, the first time we kissed, I wondered why it felt so much like you knew something I didn’t.” His eyes shone. “You were practically glowing, like it was this amazing, magical thing that we’d just done, and I couldn’t help feeling like maybe you were right.”  
  
            “I guess now you know,” she puffed a laugh through her lips, drawn taut with her smile, her cheeks puffing up, the corners of her eyes wrinkling.  
  
            “It was almost too perfect.” He leaned in and whispered, “Now I know it’s because you had practice.”  
  
            John closed the distance between them and their lips connected, Mary’s as soft as John had ever remembered them; softer. She straightened her back and ran her tongue along the bottom of John’s upper lip, and then nipped at his tongue as it ventured into her mouth. John dipped his head and swooped up, lifting Mary with him into the blinding white behind his eyes before gently pulling back.  
  
            “Wow,” she whispered.  
  
            “Yeah,” John said. “God.”  
  
            “Is there anything else I need to do?” she asked, settling closer but still managing to be all business. “If I want to…you know…”

           “Dunno,” said John, “I guess…it’ll just…happen. I’ll make sure to mix the sheet music up so that you get the unlabeled one amongst the others.”  
  
           “I mean…for you,” she muttered. “Not just later, but…also…right now. Your friend is…I mean. Well. Is there anything I can do?”  
  
            “You’re doing fine just as-is.” John smiled. “Really. And…and thank you. I can’t thank you enough. All you need to do right now is just…keep smiling like that.”  
  
            “It’s quite exciting, isn’t it?” she laughed. “If—well, if it happens,” she paused, gauging whether John understood what she meant by _it_ , “and you leave me there waiting for you to come back…I’ll be dying to hear about how you saved him. You have to tell me.”  
  
            “I will.”               
  
            “Anything else that I can help you with while you’re here?”  
  
            “Actually…yeah. I’m…I’m making sure Sh—uh, my friend, is doing okay, that I didn’t mess anything up mucking about in the past. I need to find where he is.”  
  
            “Phone books?”  
  
            John nodded. Of course, he’d bet money that Sherlock wasn’t in any sort of phone book, but much as he hated to think of the idea,he did know of someone who was likely to be there, and could probably locate Sherlock for him at this time.  
  
            Mary was already retrieving the phone book by the time he caught up.  
  
            “What’s his last name?”  
  
            “Actually…” John said, “I don’t think he’ll be in there.”  
  
            She simply looked up and waited.  
  
            “Look up…look up Sebastian Wilkes.” When Mary gave him a curious look, John clarified, “I know they knew each other in university, so he can probably tell me where to find him, or at least tell me who I can ask.”  
  
            “Oh,” she began flipping to the W’s. “Sure. Here,” she pointed. “There’s two. Which one, do you think?”  
  
            “Mm,” John looked at the addresses. “I don’t really know anything about him, but I’d bet anything that first one is his father’s.” He pulled out his notebook. “I’ll write them both down, either way,” he said, flipping it open. John paused at the map Sherlock had drawn.  
  
            “What’s that?”  
  
            John laughed. “I told him I was lost.” He paused, and specified, “This is from 1984.”  
  
            “He was younger, then.”  
  
            “Just a little kid.”  
  
            “God,” Mary breathed, and John lifted an eyebrow. “That’s so romantic.”  
  
            John flushed. “It’s not—” he started, and shook his head, continuing to flip through the pages until he reached the nearest blank to the front. “Never mind.” He scribbled down the addresses. “Thanks. I think I’ll—well. I’ll be off to look into this, now.”  
  
            “Sure,” Mary smiled. “Yeah. I need to get back to work, anyway.”  
  
            John ran a hand through his hair. “I hope you…” he paused. “Well, at least, I know when I met you, you were crazy about your job. I just kind of assumed…”  
  
            “Oh,” Mary said, “Yeah, I…I like it. I just don’t want to promise…you know. I kind of want…well. I wouldn’t mind taking on something with a bit more responsibility.”  
  
            “I must just be a magnet for workaholics,” John mused.  
  
            “Your friend, too?”  
  
            “It’s his bread and butter. I think possibly literally, because I’m not sure how else he hasn’t keeled over and died due to malnutrition.” Mary giggled at that, and John pocketed his notebook once more. “I guess I’m not much better.”  
  
           “No,” she agreed, and then asked abruptly, as John’s foot led off toward the front door, “Can I have a goodbye kiss?”  
  
           “Of course,” John leaned in, and pressed his lips into hers. He paused there for several seconds before pulling back, and running one hand from her shoulder to her elbow. “Thank you—I mean it. I owe you more than I can say.”  
  
           “Go,” Mary nudged him. “Get going, so you can get back to me in the future and break my poor little heart and move out.” Her smile was soberer than John would have liked. “Just let me visit you afterward.”  
  
           “Definitely.”  
  
           “Now, get out of here.”  
  
           So he did.

 

 

           John found that he was able to take a bus to at least the vicinity of where it appeared Sebastian might live—he disembarked and headed in what he was fairly certain was the correct direction. If it were just a few years later, he could’ve consulted his mobile to make sure—ah, well.

           He was nearing the area, and started to turn the corner to the next street when he heard a voice he swore he’d heard before—

           “I’m sure you understand the position I’m in, here,” it said, and John paused, and its owner swept past John. It _had_ to be Sebastian Wilkes. John paused, glancing down the street onto which he’d been about to turn—that must’ve been it, then; that was where he had come from. He must have just left his flat. John followed him at a distance, and tried to hang just close enough to hear him, just to make sure he had the right fellow. “No, I’m talking about a fair bit more than that,” he continued, “although I’ve had rather enough with your _ab_ —yes—what?”

           He seemed affronted.

           “No. The thing of it is, you’re making it rather difficult for me to conduct serious meetings with potential clients and I—now listen here, you fre—”

           Sebastian—and John was sure it was him, by now—huffed into his phone as the person on the other end spoke. John’s belly was filled with a curling suspicion about who that person was.

           “—Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing—we just spoke about this, Sherlock.”

           Sherlock’s name sounded awful coming off of Sebastian’s tongue, John decided, as if it were meant to be synonymous with the terrible names people called Sherlock, rather than with something more appropriate, something more like equal parts wondrous and frustrating. John shivered. Sebastian was, though, definitely talking with Sherlock. This was probably the closest to Sherlock that John would be able to get until he saved him; he held onto the conversation with bated breath.

           “Well we can hardly call it breaking up, can we?” Sebastian laughed a slippery laugh. “Anyway, I—now hold on, I’ve only just left, you were fine th—how high _are_ you?”

           John froze.

           “Look, Sherlock, I haven’t the time for your theatrics right now. All I’m saying is, you need to start looking for someplace else.” Another laugh, sharp and high-pitched. “Don’t be so overdramatic; it’s not the end of the _world_.” And Sebastian pocketed his mobile and continued on, stopping at the corner to try to hail a cab.

            _How high_ are _you?_

_I’ve only just left, you were fine then._

           John glanced down the street from which Sebastian had come.

           Sherlock was there—he had to be there. He lived with Sebastian—Sebastian had only just left—Sebastian was kicking him out.

 _How high_ are _you?_

Maybe Sherlock _was_ just being overdramatic. But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe—John shuddered and took off at a sprint down the street, playing the address of the flat through his mind like a mantra as he did. When he got to the door, he almost immediately buzzed Sebastian’s room, and then reconsidered.

            If Sherlock answered, he would definitely, _definitely_ see John, up close, from the front. John could play it off as if he were visiting someone else, got the wrong address—but he doubted he could. His jaw would hang agape for just a split-second before snapping shut at the sight of Sherlock—older, again, now, or at least a bit older, no longer a child—maybe amidst a downward spiral, or maybe at the beginning of what John had witnessed in the Chinese restaurant after meeting Mycroft in 2008— _high_ , apparently—John would have to squeeze his fists at his sides to keep himself from wrapping his hands around Sherlock’s shoulders and trying to physically shake some sense into him. If he came face-to-face with Sherlock, not a hallucination, not a child, not a voice behind his head in a restaurant, not a voice from over his shoulder, but _Sherlock_ , god knew what he would do.

            Maybe, if he could sneak in some other way, he could simply peek in on Sherlock from a distance. He wasn’t on the ground floor, by the looks of the address.

            The door to the building creaked open, and a young woman stepped out. “’Lo,” she said, pausing with her hand against the door, and John realized she was holding it open to let him in.

            “Thanks,” he said, and glanced at the panel of names by the buzzer. _Must be the new one,_ he thought to himself amusedly, noticing that while none of the name tags were as new and temporary as a slip of paper, one was markedly less worn than the others. He paced quietly up the stairs and identified the door to Sebastian’s—Sherlock’s. John pressed his ear up against the door. He could hear a few faint noises, rustling of feet against the floor. Someone was there, and it was probably Sherlock.

            There was a faint clatter and a shout, and then a heavy _thud_ that shook the floor beneath John’s feet that could only have belonged to something about as heavy as a body.

            _Sod ‘being recognized,’_ John thought, feeling heat surge through his veins and slow time down. He knocked at the door. “Hello?” he shouted.

            Nothing.

            _Fuck._

            John took in a deep breath, and then stepped back, bracing himself, before lifting his leg up and, with a shout, smashing his foot against the door just beneath the handle. It creaked a little, and he gave it another go before the latch broke and John pressed his way into the room.

            _Oh, god_.

            John felt the entire contents of his chest cavity lurch.

            Sherlock was sprawled out on the ground, next to an open box with supplies that had clattered out of it. He sprinted forward and knelt over Sherlock, over the bottles and boxes and blisters that had fallen out—and realized with a start that the box had been full of what usually served as treatments for overdoses of other various drugs—not that that made them any more legal; not that they, too, couldn’t be used for other purposes. At least he was…well. At least he was prepared. Sort of.

            _Stupid, stupid git._

By the looks of it, this hadn’t been intentional—otherwise, Sherlock would’ve been ready and prepared with the box, not desperately pulling it down from a shelf with shaking hands before collapsing. For here he was: collapsed. There wasn’t blood dripping down his head and onto the floor, and his eyes were closed, this time, not that chilling-icy-open, but the sight still sent a shudder down John’s spine and through his legs, making them weak, his knees threatening to collapse from below him for just a few slow, brutal seconds before his mind snapped back into trauma mode, into dealing mode, into fixing mode. John knelt beside Sherlock.

            He pressed his forefinger and middle finger against Sherlock’s throat, and— _thank god_ —he was breathing, if too quickly, too shallowly, if his heartbeat was all over the place and— _shit._ Cocaine, probably, John thought, considering the possibilities and Sherlock’s symptoms with calm and calculating ease that came back to him easily, flowing from his mind like Sherlock’s deductions. He eyed the bottle of diazepam that Sherlock had probably been going for at the time. “You’re gonna be fine,” he muttered, preparing the injection with dexterous fingers and then holding Sherlock’s elbow, carefully sliding it into the antecubital fossa, timing his depression of the plunger.

            John breathed heavily, looking around the flat. Sherlock’s mobile had to be someplace nearby—he’d just been using it, after all. John’s hand paused against Sherlock’s arm as he wiped the syringe and plunger down with his sleeve to remove any fingerprints and then carefully set it on a bookshelf, where he could deal with it later, or at least where a medic could find it and dispose of it appropriately. God, and Sherlock’s skin was burning. John stalked to the kitchen, keeping his eyes sharp for the mobile, and fished ice out of the tray, wrapping it in a towel that had been thrown onto the table and hoping against hope that the towel was at least marginally cleaner than most of the ones at 221B had ended up being. He used the towel to wipe down where he’d touched the door to the freezer.

            John pressed the ice up to Sherlock’s forehead and tentatively slid his hand into one pocket of Sherlock’s trousers, and then the other, to find his mobile.

            “You’ll be okay,” John whispered, “you’ll be fine.”

            _You idiot, you complete idiot. What if I hadn’t come by?_

He might have come to—or maybe he wouldn’t have.

            _Christ_.

            John dialed 999, and as he gave the address and as he listed Sherlock’s condition, ran his fingers through Sherlock’s hair. He’d have to leave before the ambulance arrived—the situation certainly brought up more questions than John could account for without sounding like he was insane, or possibly being arrested—but he had a few minutes. He wiped the mobile off, and holding it in his sleeve, slipped it back into Sherlock’s pocket.

            “Sherlock,” John muttered. “My god.” He ran his hands over his face before running them over Sherlock’s, still hot and sweating, but cooled marginally by the swiftly melting ice left on his forehead. Rivulets of the water that weren’t absorbed by the cloth flowed down the sides of Sherlock’s head, and John ran his fingers through the curls, damp with ice water and sweat. “You _idiot_.” He leaned farther over Sherlock, taking in all of him that he could. If he were more like Sherlock, he could identify every stray mark and feature that differentiated this younger Sherlock from the one he’d first met; as it was, the only word that came to mind was _younger_ , and, beyond that, he found they looked quite the same. Of course older Sherlock, later Sherlock, _his_ Sherlock, wasn’t quite so rail-thin, the bags under his eyes not quite so pronounced, but from here, from just this snapshot, John could attribute any of it to a bad day, a long case over which Sherlock had scarcely slept or ate. If this were later, if this were the older Sherlock, if this were _his_ Sherlock, not sprawled on the floor passed out from cocaine overdose but from sheer sleep deprivation, John would hoist him onto the sofa—or maybe leave him, and not risk waking him—and at the first stirrings of wakefulness, quietly call up some takeaway for them, and leave it sitting on Sherlock’s chair, and pull out his laptop and log onto his blog and start writing up the case as Sherlock came to.

            But this wasn’t—well—none of them were _his_ Sherlock, were they? Sherlock was his own. But this Sherlock was even less his, was less experienced and more desperate, maybe not even working with Scotland Yard yet, maybe only just figuring out that he was him and could forge his own path, if he wanted. Maybe Sherlock, like John, had spent some years stuck in a time when he was so unlike what anyone had expected of him that he struggled to be himself, rather than just _not-what-they-think_. Or maybe Sherlock struggled to be exactly what they thought. He called himself a high-functioning sociopath, didn’t he? Like others called John mild-mannered, and he was sick and sick and sick of it until he let it bounce off of him, let himself reflect their assumptions on the outside, rather than letting them get in. Maybe Sherlock let them get in for too long. Maybe there was nothing John could’ve done for him, short of being there more, short of completely revising their history. But Sherlock wasn’t broken. He’d had his days, but everyone did. Sherlock, no matter what he would argue, no matter how spectacular he was, was not _so_ terribly different from everyone else, and maybe that was all he really needed to hear, over and over. He was different in good ways; he was things other people couldn’t be. Sod what he said. He was a hero. A little hero to a lot of people. He waltzed through the battlefield of London saving lives and livelihoods. “You’re not so different,” John muttered. “You’re like everyone else, but more amazing. You’re a selfish git, but you’ve got just as much a right as anyone else, haven’t you? Probably more.” He removed the warming cloth from Sherlock’s forehead and set it aside, running his thumbs over the wetness and across Sherlock’s brows, letting himself be drawn downward.

            John felt his breath slowing, if only slightly, his chest no longer practically bursting open. Heaviness replaced the extra volume air had taken up in his lungs; heaviness and a lower-grade panic, a long-term panic, the kind of panic that really did wear on him in the way that bursts of it did not. “Because us having a tiff about the milk every other week doesn’t change the fact that you saved my bloody life, Sherlock. And I’m gonna save yours.” He hoped. God, he hoped.  John succumbed to the weight of adrenaline seeping out of his veins, and lowered himself onto his elbows, one on either side of Sherlock’s ribcage. “Sherlock,” he breathed against Sherlock’s ear, and, noticing the smallness of the distance between them, pressed an impulsive, chaste kiss to the side of Sherlock’s face. John shivered at the contact. John shifted his hands inward so that they rested against Sherlock’s curls. He ran his fingers through Sherlock’s hair until he reached his scalp, and then slowly raised them out.

           He had to leave.

           John ran his fingers over Sherlock’s scalp again. On this Sherlock, unconscious but breathing, there was no devastating gash, no blood leaking from his head. John gently felt along Sherlock’s skull—no fractures, no cracks. All John had felt before, when there was blood, when there was the gash, was Sherlock’s pulse—his lack thereof. Now, as he lifted two fingers to just below Sherlock’s jaw, his heartbeat was strong, if still quick. Such a fall would have broken any number of Sherlock’s bones; as John lifted himself back onto his haunches, he ran fingers over Sherlock’s torso, his arms, his shins. Nothing broken. Ribs: intact. His body had been rearranged by John, not splayed on the pavement by gravity and forces unknown. Nothing broken. No blood, just sleep, no blood. “Just sleep,” he ran his fingers through the locks stuck with sweat and ice water to Sherlock’s forehead, thumb pressing against Sherlock’s cheek.

            The ambulance would arrive soon; he’d be wise not to be in the process of walking down the stairs and out the door when it came. Sherlock would be fine; he was getting better. The diazepam had helped; the ice had helped; going to hospital would help, too. Sherlock would be in safe hands with the doctors once he got to them. He probably—and thank god, thought John—wouldn’t remember any of this; unconsciousness aside, there was the likely fact that his overdose would result in anterograde amnesia. All for the best then, John thought as he shifted his weight to stand, and used that thought to justify lying one light kiss on Sherlock’s forehead before rising back to his feet.

           He glanced at the broken door and winced. Sherlock might not ever get the chance to see it—if, after he recovered, he simply relocated. Then again, whether he had anything here to collect or not, that wouldn’t be like Sherlock at all. He’d want to know who’d done this. But it wasn’t exactly a quick fix… With no other evidence, though, Sherlock would have to conclude that Sebastian had come back (no, because he wouldn’t have kicked down the door, John thought), or one of the neighbors had heard (unless, of course, they were all gone at this hour, or something of that sort that Sherlock would immediately rule out), or that Mycroft had had a hand in it. John nodded at the door as he passed it. Sherlock would probably be the most eager to attribute the incident to something of Mycroft’s doing. Anyway, there was nothing here that could link it to John. Presumably, Sherlock would have to eventually give up on it; probably, he’d be drawn away by something more exciting, something that made him think less of the possibility of his brother’s involvement.

           As if Sebastian needed any further ammunition against Sherlock—but John could only hope that Sherlock would soon enough be away, would be able to put that behind him.

           John stepped down the stairs quietly and slid out the door. Farther down the street—far enough that he wouldn’t draw attention—was a bench; he could wait outside there and make sure the ambulance arrived, that somebody finished the job he started, that somebody saved Sherlock. John took a seat there, pretending to search for something in his notebook to keep himself from staring nervously down the street.

           If he couldn’t save Sherlock, god, if for some reason he didn’t save Sherlock and didn’t die trying, he wasn’t sure how he’d make it. Could he go back to the present and just keep on as before? Mary would be good to him. Mary would be good to him, and he’d try so hard, so hard to make it like it had been, but the world would be so grey. Mary was lovely but Mary wasn’t enough, and he would ruin her, probably, slowly. Ruin her with worry, or else ruin her with trying to make her into something different, or ruin her by breaking her heart because whether he saved Sherlock or not, he couldn’t marry Mary, not now. He couldn’t go back to the military; his limp would be back, his hands would be shaking, he would be a rubbish field medic. He might not be a rubbish shot, but they wouldn’t put a doctor on the front lines—they’d keep him in a tent at camp. And even then, or even if they did let him out where the action was, maybe things would still be grey. Would he hear the gunshots and catch himself searching for the mystery? The gunfire would die down and he’d be frozen in place, waiting for a clever explanation, waiting for the war to be solved like a neat little puzzle. “It was the small northeastern village you passed through last week,” Sherlock-over-his-shoulder would mutter, and then detail the lives of each of its inhabitants and make John guess which one it was who had been the spy.

           But there had been no Sherlock-over-his-shoulder now, here, in this time, no need for one with real Sherlock, with a younger and maybe foolhardier Sherlock, alive, just barely saved.

           The world would be grey without him, just as it had been.

           Andrew was right. So was Mary.

           Of course there were moments he’d been along with Sherlock, or at Baker Street with Sherlock, and _not_ been happy. But those were short arguments, bursts of anger or frustration or misunderstanding, and no matter how many there were, or how frequent they were, John knew that all in all he was immensely happier _with_ Sherlock than _without._ He could at least fall asleep even when he was miserable with Sherlock, even when he was miserable _at_ Sherlock. Maybe that was a poor example: a great many of their disagreements had been resolved by Sherlock picking up his violin at night. The music would start out vicious or agitated but that was enough for John to fall asleep, and occasionally when he drifted to wakefulness a couple of hours later Sherlock was still playing, calm and serene. Or he’d moved on to working on an experiment. Or: he was snoring, or lying on the couch talking to himself. If Sherlock were feeling particularly vindictive, he could remain completely silent at night—but he hardly ever did. John sighed, and his breath made Sherlock’s hair flutter. The arrogant git just didn’t know how to apologize any other way.

           It was probably what they meant, Mary and Andrew and all the others—what they meant to describe, when they told John the name of what he felt, was that feeling of the world exploding around him, an IED every place he’d ever stepped, and all he could think of doing with the heat against his back and blinding light searing into his eyes was throwing himself over Sherlock, curling Sherlock’s head into his chest, scooping his shoulders up, slipping an arm under his legs and pressing them in and running. Safe, safe, safe. _Stay safe, Sherlock. I’ll make you safe._

  
            Sherlock had almost _died_ , and John had saved him. What if he hadn’t been there? God, oh god.

           Andrew and Mary were right.

            But John had never questioned that he’d loved Sherlock. He already knew that he would do any variety of stupid things to protect him: already he had killed people, already he had admitted he was willing to die for him. That, most people would agree, was love. It was a friendship more intense than many would ever experience, John knew; maybe that was why they made such assumptions about him and Sherlock. Maybe they were right, in some capacity, to have noted that theirs was more than a usual friendship.

            No, John definitely loved Sherlock. That kind of fierce protectiveness that came through when they were in danger could be nothing else. But friends loved friends all the time.

            What John was noticing now, realizing now, uncovering now, was that maybe all of these things that he thought about Sherlock were…were not so different, not really at all, from some of the sorts of things that _couples_ thought about each other. Sherlock, of course, could have caught on earlier: the only explanation for all the facts was that they were a couple—they did _a_ , _b_ , and _c_ , and the only people who did _a_ , _b_ , and _c_ were couples, so it must be true. _So what?_ , Sherlock would say, that they didn’t shag? There was no proof that any other couple did, unless they were exhibitionists of some variety. No, Sherlock wouldn’t say such a thing. He would be able to find proof, somehow. John thought of Sebastian’s bitter comments back at the bank. No, Sherlock could find proof, even if no one else could.

 _So what?_ , Sherlock would say; not all couples had sex. What they were doing was clearly regarded by everyone else as a relationship of some kind; labels for relationships are defined by society ( _a_ and _b_ and _c_ ); therefore, a relationship it was. No sex required. (No kissing required. No cuddling required. No anything required, apparently.)

            Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Sherlock had been just as oblivious as John, or more so, and the only reason he didn’t correct others was because he deemed it not worth his time, deleting their words the second they came into his ears. It seemed more likely. _Not his area,_ John thought. Well, that was fine. It was all fine. All he knew was that he felt so _much_ about Sherlock, more than any person had a right to feel about anything, and that had to mean _something_. Maybe he’d tell Sherlock straight away after he saved him. Maybe he’d never tell him. If it was important, Sherlock would deduce it.

           “Hardly a challenge,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, and John froze. “Did you see yourself?” John closed his eyes, knowing it was a rhetorical question, and listened to the gentle and wordless hum of Sherlock-over-his-shoulder listing exactly how John had been positioned, rolling from general features—the angle of his arms, the tilt of his head—to the smallest of details—the tenseness of his fingers, the reflection of Sherlock’s closed eyes in John’s wide and open and shining ones—like waves until the ambulance whirred down the street, speeding past John and pulling up beside Sherlock’s flat, and John sighed with relief, and Sherlock-over-his-shoulder paused and waited as the paramedics rushed the real Sherlock out and into the ambulance.

           John didn’t know if what he felt for Sherlock was anything other than a particularly intense love between friends. John was used to intense, after all. He hadn’t felt quite this way about any of his army friends, but that wasn’t so unbelievable: none of his army friends were quite as remarkable, quite as unusual, quite as special as Sherlock. Of course anything relating to Sherlock would have to be different, more difficult, more amazing: even friendship.

            John wasn’t so humble that he would say he himself was completely unremarkable. He was a damn good doctor and a damn good shot, and there weren’t very many people who were both of those things. But nothing about him or his life had felt so extraordinary as the minute in which Sherlock deduced him and then invited him to look at a flat, except perhaps the ten minutes they spent sprinting after the cabbie, leaping over buildings, except maybe when they had gotten back to the flat and leaned against the wall, laughing, John caneless, Sherlock’s eyes gleaming…except maybe when… All of the most fantastic moments in his memory were after he met Sherlock. Even this— _time travel!_ —it was all, in a way, Sherlock’s doing. John took the case, he could admit now, in part on the completely unreasonable hope that he would be able to go back and do exactly what he was doing now, seeing Sherlock, saving Sherlock. But otherwise, Brian would have come to Sherlock with the case. John wondered if the machine could be engineered to carry two, or if he would have had to wait around (though maybe only minutes) for Sherlock to go on his own. Surely that would not be an acceptable arrangement to Sherlock. Sherlock would find a way to make room for the both of them, and they would travel through time together.

            God, maybe that was a little too romantic. But Sherlock wouldn’t see it that way. And if he wanted, John didn’t have to see it that way either. They could be that, too, just two blokes with a relationship nobody else could understand: their loss. Whatever it was, this confusing thing that they had, it meant more to John than anything. He would put up with everybody in the world thinking he was gay (whether he was or not, god, he couldn’t tell anymore—or didn’t care anymore) if it meant he could go home in the evening with Sherlock, still riding a high from chasing down criminals, giggling and ordering Thai and subjecting him to bad spy movies. Now, here, John could imagine it in clear and photographic detail: Sherlock nearly leaned up against him, pouting about the numerous inaccuracies in the film. Sherlock would slouch over and lean his head against John’s shoulder, and John would be a bit less sodding blind than all the times it had nearly happened before, and see the opportunity, and curl his arm up to pet Sherlock’s hair. John would turn his head and, almost as if by accident, his lips would be pressed to Sherlock’s temple. Sherlock could quickly scramble back, if he wanted, and John’s heart would break a little, and life would go on; or, he would lean into it, and keep mumbling about how the only ‘ _impossible_ ’ thing about the movie was the protagonist being able to chase anybody in that cut of suit. “And at that angle of strike, his shoes would leave scuff marks on tiled floor,” Sherlock would say. “Even Anderson could track him down.” John would squeeze Sherlock’s shoulders and feel him there and he would be _real_ and breathing and their pulses would interfere and come into line and go out of line like the rest of their lives. Constructive interference, destructive interference: as always, they would be a perfect team and then Sherlock would throw half his chemistry set across the room because John made some offhand comment about his blog having twenty times as many hits as Sherlock’s that day. Like binary stars, except that for all his lack of knowledge about such things Sherlock was still more massive, was sucking John in bit by bit; he would have one day dragged all of John’s being into himself, and then what? And then a nova. And then a supernova. And then Sherlock would be gone—but maybe, maybe, if they were close enough, if John had given enough away, then he would be gone, too.

            But that was okay, somehow—very okay. It was what Sally Donovan and any number of others had warned him against, but what they didn’t know—maybe even what he hadn’t known—was that that was exactly what he wanted. His life would gravitate around Sherlock until he fell in too deep to get out.

            He already had, of course.

           And John had saved him, here, today. John had saved Sherlock this time, even when Andrew said he couldn’t. Maybe Andrew wasn’t right about everything. Maybe he was wrong about this. John had saved Sherlock, and he was going to do it again. He was going to save Sherlock, and go back to Mary with a story to tell and a suitcase to pack, and move back into 221B, let Sherlock have a field day with the dust before wiping it clean, let Sherlock call John sentimental or whatever else he wanted, as he looked at the treads on the carpet, at the unmoved furniture, at the only place John ever sat. Maybe John would tell Sherlock about this. Maybe Sherlock would deduce exactly how he felt, down to the mines, down to the fire and the bombs and the novae. Maybe Sherlock would like it. Maybe he’d set fire to something in celebration. Maybe he wouldn’t; maybe they’d never speak of it again. But, John thought, _but_ , it would be worth a try, because Sherlock was drawn to explosions like a firefly to the faint hum of electricity, subtle and unassuming and quiet.

            They weren’t so different.

            Whatever happened later didn’t matter, though, because later Sherlock would be alive, and now, _no_ —now, John had things to do. He stood as the ambulance keened down the street and out of sight. What John was going to do now—the best way to save Sherlock—the best way to save a _lot_ of people, but most especially Sherlock—was kill Moriarty. John nodded to himself and turned on his heel to set off down the street, opposite the direction of the hospital.

           He was going to kill Moriarty.

           He was going to save Sherlock.  
  
  
END PART II


	11. Here and Human (Interlude A)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seventeen years. All right: sixteen years, nine months, twelve days; now’s hardly the time to start sacrificing accuracy for drama. That, John, my friend, is the exact amount of time that you have spent filling in for the real John.
> 
> John Watson.
> 
> And I regret to inform you that I may be consulting you less in times to come.
> 
> Because John Watson is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asdlkjsafd I have been so excited to share this part with you guys. It took a lot of work to get the mood and telling of it right and I need to thank Morwen_Eledwhen for how very much she helped me with this chapter.  
> (A note: The skull was named and its story invented for this fic before the Casebook came out. So, I'm aware this contradicts that. But.)
> 
> The next chapter will be the beginning of the third part (or the second of the main "arcs," this one reflecting the S2E2 theme of fear). 
> 
> And I hope that now you can get the same sort of joy that I do in watching ASiP and imagining it taking place in this universe...highly recommended.

_A man is many things; let’s count them all tonight.  
_ _You’re letting go of strings, replacing them with light.  
_ _...  
_ _Would you finally see that all your lives are moments?  
_ _All your words and closeness keep you here and human,  
_ _Whispering tonight._  
—from “Scream, Scream, Scream” by Ludo

 

 

           Seventeen years. All right: sixteen years, nine months, twelve days; now’s hardly the time to start sacrificing accuracy for drama. That, John, my friend, is the exact amount of time that you have spent filling in for the real John.

            John Watson.

            And I regret to inform you that I may be consulting you less in times to come.

            Because John Watson is here.

            You saw when he came to look at the flat (the flat, which will be _our_ flat, John Watson’s and mine; it practically already is). He even noticed you, pointing at you with that damned cane of his. Didn’t have one of those before, did he? Don’t worry; I’m taking care of it. I expect he won’t be using it tomorrow. He won’t be able to find it in a week, not that he’ll be looking. His expression, when he realized he’d just spent the past twenty-odd minutes dashing about London, scaling stairs, jumping across buildings without it—no, he won’t be looking for that cane again.

            When John noticed you, I’m sure you heard me introduce you as “a friend.” That’s not a lie, obviously; you have been—are—exactly that. But, naturally, I can’t have told him your name. (Well, I could’ve done; plenty of people named John in the world, but really not plenty of skulls.) It’d have to have gone something like, “This, John, is my friend, John, a skull who I named after a time-traveling fellow I first met when I was about six.” John is free to think (and know) that I am eccentric, but I’d prefer he not think that I actually belong in an asylum.

            But, I suppose, I can let him know later—presumably sometime after 2012, which was the copyright date on that notebook of his, the one he had me draw a map in the first time. Of _course_ he wasn’t lost, was he? You’ve heard me say it a thousand times: every ounce of my gut told me, despite all logic, that he knew me. It was his casual acceptance of my particular behaviors that seemed (seem) to disturb everyone else; it was merely the look on his face whenever he turned it toward me, an old-friends sort of openness that I have never experienced besides then but have, nonetheless, witnessed in others. When he threatened those sixth-form morons, the familiarity in his voice was audible, not to mention that he was clearly doing it for _me_ , rather than—whoever else. That was the first thing I told you about him, wasn’t it? The timbre of his voice and the tautness of his posture as he told them off—frightening and amazing. Straight off we agreed that I’d forgive you for not being able to replicate those things, since you are so quiet and so good at listening. Just like John—just like the real John. He likes my deductions even more than you do.

            And of course no matter the extent to which he insisted on not knowing me, to which he pretended not to know me, he certainly knew me when we sat back to back in that atrocious Chinese restaurant. What was that, two years ago? He wouldn’t so much as look at me, after the first time he noticed me—but he knew. Obvious. You, I’m sure, are bored by now of hearing the hundred things I’d wished I’d said, after that; of hearing how much self-restraint it took not to turn around and grasp him by the shoulders and say, “I know, John, I _know_.” But perhaps my state at the time helped. Of all the ways for John to see me, in the middle of cold-turkey withdrawal would not have been my first choice.

            He knew anyway, of course. He’s a doctor. And he knew me.

            He didn’t know me yesterday. I hardly knew him—he came in so subtly, so unexpectedly, not like the times before. He was just present, a piece of the world like any other person. Just…a man.

            I say _just a man._ That’s what he was, at that moment, for that day. But of course I couldn’t stay around, lest inadvisable things spew forth from my mouth (as they often do, but this time the consequences would be much direr than, say, pissing off Lestrade again). I needed time to think, time to think about John Watson. John: a man, just a man. Here. A man. Only a few years older than me—not that that’s what I was thinking at the time. I was still working past details I’d gathered about him: Afghanistan, psychosomatic limp (interesting), therapist, alone. (Alone: like me.)

            I could finally look at his face, for the first time since I was six years old, and gather up some of those lost details, fill them in past _coat_ and _mobile_ (not that I knew that’s what it was at the time; but you watched them come into existence with me, you remember me getting my first one, turning it over in my hand, knowing it was the same strange device as the one from John’s pocket), past _notebook_ and his gentle _not good_.

            He was (is, _is_ ) here, with wrinkles and trousers just as specific and detailed as anyone else’s, with a nose different from everyone else’s. I can point out all the parts of you that indicate that you are clearly not a suitable replacement for the real John. (But you were the best I could do, and now, as you filled in for John, John is here to fill in for you, and I regret to tell you that he’s doing superbly.) If I poured him a cup of tea, he’d take it from my hand. He’s got textures and colors and a pulse. He blinks. He’s here, _present-tense_ here, not vanished after even an hour, two, twelve. He’s here in the present, just a man—and now I am a man, too, aren’t I?

            For an ordinary man who has not yet time-traveled, he is still an enigma. I do wonder, if I hadn’t met him before, if I would have invited him to share a flat with me anyway. Perhaps I would have.

            I took him out to eat at a restaurant twice today. It was a bit of an experiment, to test his reaction; further, I had to prove to him, as memorably as possible, that he needs me. I cured his limp; his face lit up. What further proof could he possibly need, that I am the best possible flatmate for him? He’s going to love it. He’ll hate me, everyone does, but he obviously went back to find me, so he’ll also not hate me, and that will be the lovely part.

            When I took him to Angelo’s, however, he flirted with me. I think he did. He said he didn’t, though not in those words, but all my observations about flirting indicate that that was what he was doing.

            Sorting out my reaction was…problematic. I was still realizing things like that he has a closet with clothes, people who are related to him; that he’s had jobs, and went to school, and didn’t _actually_ just manifest out of nowhere to visit me. I was still realizing that he’s a human. A human like any other human (relatively speaking). I’m still working on it, in fact.

            So while he was trying to flirt with me, I was still attempting to process other information (other, frightfully obvious information), such as _he likes lasagna, he eats lasagna, he uses a fork_ , which I suppose, were things that had never occurred to me before. Certainly you never facilitated the process. You never ate lasagna.

            I was still processing that we had had entire conversations that day, that he hadn’t disappeared yet, that he called me _amazing_.

            Naturally I wouldn’t have expected it. Obviously. How do you think _you_ (not you, of course, you’re a skull) would react to a childhood imaginary friend asking what sort of people you fancy, licking his lips in sort of a way, sort of an, ‘Is it me? Am I your type?’ sort of way. How am I to know? He only just now became human. I spent seventeen years of my life talking to a bloody _skull_ to replace him.

            Well. So. It’s a situation I couldn’t have been prepared for. Not that I ought to have been preparing, or not that I ought to have anticipated—I’m _living_ with him, as if that wasn’t enough!

            So, of course, with little else to—I mean, of course it was perfectly natural for me to have simply—I think perhaps it could have gone better. I opted for my usual approach and I told him the truth, which is that I’m married to my work. I am. It’s the only thing I have. Or it was, anyway, before he turned up as my flatmate, which is ridiculous, and then flirted with me, which was more ridiculous, if it was flirting, which, again, all empirical evidence points to _yes_ but perhaps further data needs to be—

            I told him that I was married to my work, which might have been, in retrospect, not an ideal response, but it’s not as if I could have _planned_ for him showing up and it’s definitely not as if I could have _planned_ for him becoming part of the Work at all. But he came to a crime scene, because he’s a doctor, and when I asked him if he was any good, he said, “Very good,” like his throat was stopped up with something that up until then he had been very diligently hiding from me. (Which he had, and that _thing_ was that John seems to be extraordinary even without the time-travel.)

            I think he will become part of the Work. I think he wants to. I could never have imagined him being so useful. I impressed him; he wants to impress me. He already has.

            Exhibit A: he shot someone for me.

            In the second I realized it was him who did it—that perfect shot, and perfectly timed, from one building to another—he was temporarily not human again. Afterward, he looked at me, playing along, _oh_ , innocent John Watson who just appeared at the crime scene, and right there on front of Lestrade, who most definitely saw my realization as it happened. My realization was this: It was not that he was (is) extraordinary _or_ human. It’s that he’s both. The opposite of me: because people will always look at him and think of him as ordinary first, and it’s only when something incomprehensibly _big_ and _unknown_ and _fierce_ explodes out of him that he becomes extraordinary enough for the average eye to see; when people see me they know I am extraordinary, and if I try particularly hard, I can seem ordinary—human-like, as the typical behaviors and appearances of humans go. Of course, seeming human-like is a weakness for me, whereas it is a strength for him. But, of course, John has already seen what I was like, when I was…well. When I was younger. I suppose he met me and he knew me and he was my flatmate and he wasn’t so displeased that he didn’t go back and see more. Most people seem to be uncomfortable with the notion that I occasionally do not seem completely alien; am prone to the rare fit of appearing disastrously in line with the ordinary (which, granted, I am usually successful at hiding, so they needn’t worry).

            When I was in uni, and sharing a flat with Seb—there was a moment, earlier on in the time I spent with him, when I was getting out of the shower and he strolled in and saw me nude. He laughed, as if it were a revelation to him that I have an arse. In retrospect, it wasn’t mockery—but what was I to have done? I shoved him out. Maybe that was where it had started getting worse; maybe it was later, after that. Difficult to pinpoint.

            But John has also seen aspects of myself that no one person has seen all of—besides Mycroft and Mummy, of course, but that’s different, and John is most certainly neither of them. I get a sense that since John and I _are_ flatmates now, and it _could_ happen (which is utterly ridiculous, and still requires some reflecting upon)—well. I think if the same thing were to happen to John and me, perhaps me just preparing to towel off, him not realizing it and opening the door—perhaps it would be all right. We’re even enough; I know some about him that he doesn’t know yet. I know how immensely extraordinary he is, and will be. I suppose he could know, if anybody had to, that I, too, have a texture, have wrinkles, have preferences at restaurants. I have an arse. I suppose it would only be fair, if he were to find out about these things.

            He wouldn’t laugh. Or maybe he would, but it would be in apology. He’d turn red and leave, because John Watson is modest, and he, being real, can blush, like anyone else.

            Of course, if he didn’t leave, if he just stood there, I’d need more time to process. He’d stand there and lick his lips, as he seems to do frequently when uncertain or contemplative or—well, as he seems to do frequently in general. I would stand there and process.

            I’m still processing.

            I probably should have said something else, rather than that I’m married to my Work. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d not said anything; it’s not as if I’d needed to; the conversation was over, we were done, but I was still doing a little processing of what he _meant_ , when he’d asked about—about having a boyfriend, about being unattached—and there he was, waiting, _meaning_ things, and god knows what they were, and _something_ need to be said, so I said it, because I’ll be _damned_ if you (not you; you’re a skull) ever once anticipated being asked on a date by someone from—novels, or fairy-tales, or—

            But he’s real, of course. And he’s here. And he’s my flatmate. He’s sleeping here, upstairs, which is where his bedroom is, because he lives here, with me.

            I don’t know why he left to go to the past to see me. Of course I can’t ask; of course I can’t have known to try to ask before. There’s nothing to deduce, yet, either; I can merely speculate, which is generally something I avoid, but I think in this case, it is worth considering. To…anticipate possible future occurrences.

            I don’t think he’s leaving. I think—I think this is where things are supposed to pick up. I think this is where I meet him, and he meets me, and we become flatmates, and friends. He’s not hiding the time-travel—he’s not hiding much of anything, really, that I haven’t already deduced aloud for him. And his face, and his demeanor, as he realized that I _know_ how much he needs a bit of thrill, a bit of danger, a bit of adrenaline—he was relieved, relieved to find someone who _understood_. I owe him at least that—at least as much understanding as I can manage. I can understand danger. I can give it to him, too. And I will.

            And is that what we do, then? He moves in, and he is my audience, and I am his supplier of excitement? I bring him along on more cases like today’s—and then what? Is this be beginning of whatever leads to John Watson pretending to be lost and asking my six-year-old self to draw a map for him?

            I don’t think he’s got a time machine hidden away somewhere; I don’t think he’s even got thoughts about a time machine. I would be able to see it on his face, if he did. He’s not keeping any secrets from me.

            He’s moving in. Tomorrow. Right now, he’s asleep in the upstairs bedroom. Still there—I checked. I’ll help him move. (He says he doesn’t have much. I’m sure he’ll still appreciate the assistance. Perfect excuse to avoid giving my statement to Lestrade for at least a few hours.)

             I think he’s staying. I think he’s going to stay and be my flatmate. I’ll be able to text him and he’ll answer. I tested it, I can text him to come and he shows up. He’s _here_ , in the world, in London, all the time, and that means that when I need him, I can have him—not just for half an hour, not just by chance, not just when I’m least expecting it and least prepared for it, not just in the form of a skull that I talk to when who I really want to talk to is John Watson.

            Not, of course, that he’ll _always_ come, I’m sure. Not that he’ll _always_ answer straight away. Not that he won’t do it without some groaning. Not that he’ll be able to remain in a constant state of exactly the man I remember, because he’s _not_ actually like that, of course, and especially not all the time, because _yes,_ thank-you, I’m well aware that I formed particular ideas about him when I was too young to have sufficient control over such things, and that I met him when things like heroes were possible. I’m aware he’ll disappoint me. We discussed this. It’s the nature of—well. Everyone.

            Because he is still an idiot, just as we braced ourselves for. Of course he is. But he’s a different sort of idiot than everyone else. Yes, he’s apparently got the same allergy to _observing_ that everyone else has got, but he does listen; he does _try_ to understand; he’s still _John_. He says things like, “Not good, Sherlock”—like he did the first time—and like he said again tonight (“Bit not good,” he agreed, when I asked). Perhaps for him it wasn’t _again_ —perhaps he only said it to me before—later—because he remembers me saying it, suggesting it, this time. And maybe he’ll say it to me again, and again, and again. But just like the first time, he uses it as a helpful reminder, as a tag for some _thing_ I did, not as a tag for _me_. That is the particular sort of idiot John is: he points out _not good_ for me because he, apparently, expects that I be (am) (do) _good_. (I suppose Mrs. Hudson may be that sort of idiot as well. But perhaps she’s more perceptive than I give her credit for: Why did she take you away earlier tonight? Did she know, somehow, that John would be replacing you? No, maybe not. When I came to fetch you back it became evident she may have taken you simply as an excuse to lure me down for late-night tea and biscuits and gossip.)

            So, true: John does need rather a bit of assistance in following my deductions, just like any other ordinary person, just like any other idiot. But he’s also—well— _John_. John with the calm and quiet voice. John with the sturdy stance. John who clearly hasn’t smiled much lately, but whose smile lights up for _me_ , of all things. It was a bit rusty, perhaps, a bit unused, but it grew easier and brighter the more we ran and the more I spoke, and when, do you suppose, is the last time that my speaking made anyone smile? He laughed. He called me amazing. We sprinted to the flat and giggled against the wall and when Lestrade’s sniffer dogs were upstairs (dogging me, as dogs do), he defended me, for _his_ first time, and obviously the first time of many, between now and when he goes back and defends me seventeen years ago. I know this because of the other thing he did today, that really good thing, he—when he shot that cabbie, clean and precise, from a building away, and he became the John I already know, hero-John. My John. He shot a bad cabbie for me, and that means he’s staying, doesn’t it? He said he’s moving in. He called me amazing and brilliant. He thought the flat was “very nice indeed,” you heard. You know. You saw him. He’s staying, don’t you think? It will be good for him. It already is.

            But what remains to be seen is—2012. Or maybe not long after, can’t have been too long, his notebook looked new and he was wearing the same jacket as tonight (and not all that much less worn than when I saw it). So, two years or so, and then he’ll go away, time-traveling. Without me. Why? Will we no longer be friends in 2012? If not, then, why would he continue to meet me, to find me, if he no longer desired to see me?

            Or did we initially begin traveling together, and were separated? Does something happen to me? If that’s the case, wh—

            —but all this is ridiculous, of course. To theorize before having all the data is not only foolish but also dangerous—and doubly so, I think, when it comes to something as time travel, where facts are so easily twisted.

            All I can say for certain, all the _facts_ that I have, are that John is here, that John plans to move in. I theorize that he will be staying. I theorize that I will become his friend as he has become mine. How long either of these things lasts, and what brings them to an end—why John would come back in time to find me—these remain to be seen. I can only hope that when he goes, under whatever conditions he goes, he is sure to come back. I expect he will be a very difficult flatmate to replace.

 


	12. Cosmic Strings Like Rubber Bands (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d wait for the perfect shot. Or a good enough one, didn’t really matter. Didn’t have to be perfect, so long as it got the job done. 
> 
> John swallowed down a lump as he entered the 30th of March, 2010 for the destination date. 
> 
> He wouldn’t be seeing Sherlock—not if he had anything to say about it. No, the only one he’d be seeing was Moriarty, over the top of his Browning, just before shooting him dead for what he did, what he would do, what he wasn’t going to do, to Sherlock. 
> 
> John smacked the engage button with a little more force than necessary. 
> 
> He was ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that feeling when you get to the top of a huge hill on a roller coaster and the train pauses for half a second, except the rollercoaster is a fanfic and the half a second is the first two-thirds of this chapter?  
>  Yeah.  
>  Please make sure your safety harnesses are secured for the remainder of this story because I think it is gonna fly like whoa. (You can see I have a very[!!] tentative chapter count, even.)
> 
> Many thanks to [Morwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen), as usual, for the beta-ing. And additional thanks to [Chucksauce](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chucksauce/pseuds/chucksauce) for also helping me with this chapter!
> 
> Title of this section is from [Part I](http://youtu.be/L-stv638Of0) by Ludo. 
> 
> If you are or might be going to 221BCon in Atlanta this April (do it, do it!), pleeeease read my end-notes. =D They are related to this fic, even.

            He needed to wait until after they’d gone to the pool, until after he’d almost been blown up, until after he and Sherlock almost died two or three times at least, before he could kill Moriarty, John decided. If Moriarty glimpsed John before dying, best the bastard recognize him. And—well. And if he and Sherlock could make it past the pool, they could still have that moment, that moment of quiet and when Sherlock took John’s mobile and curled up with him, that would be…good. It was a moment that, for all John’s stupidity in not letting Sherlock tell John what he so seemed to need to, John still held precious.

 _John? I wanted to…say…_  

            For reasons that bloomed now from the pit of his stomach, warm and stinging citrus flowers that burned at him from inside, John held those words close. He’d been hoping for an admission, a revelation, but he wasn’t ready, so he burst in with those words, with his sodding stupid crack about James Bond. But Sherlock knew. Sherlock understood. Surely, Sherlock deduced.

            Or maybe not. Maybe such fickle emotions as fondness and love were really not Sherlock’s area, not in the same way that they were for others. Maybe Sherlock wanted to say something else entirely—though what else he would say, with that soft and solemn voice, John couldn’t imagine.

             He climbed into the time machine in Mummy Holmes’ garden, glancing around for a good rock. Hopefully it would still be a safe place to land farther in the future—he supposed there wasn’t any reason it wouldn’t be, unless the Holmeses (or just Holmes? Just her, alone, with Sherlock and Mycroft out?) moved. But just to be safe, John tore a page out of his notebook and wrote, _Will be back in 2010_ , and pinned it with his stone of choice to the floor of the gazebo. Of course he was also going to be back sooner than that, but he hadn’t known that then, had he? Mummy Holmes was doubtless a clever individual, and had certainly proven to be so far; she’d figure it out.

            John would go after Moriarty after he left the pool—just after he left the pool. While John and Sherlock were on the other side of the building, being wrapped in blankets; while Sherlock was being an arse about giving a report to the police whilst also managing to be an arse to Mycroft for calling the police in the first place; while John’s legs were shaking with horror and relief and while he clung, occasionally, to Sherlock’s coat, to catch his balance, and Sherlock turned to him and cracked a tiny smile before snapping something back at Greg—John would go just before then, to the back door through which Moriarty had exited, chattering away on his mobile, and wait.

            He’d wait for the perfect shot. Or a good enough one, didn’t really matter. Didn’t have to be perfect, so long as it got the job done.

            John swallowed down a lump as he entered the 30th of March, 2010 for the destination date.

            This would be different from the other times.

            He’d definitely be around; in fact, he’d be very near himself. He’d be very near Sherlock, and a Sherlock who would most definitely recognize John. John had, at least, the knowledge of where they’d been then—assuming nothing changed.

            But maybe everything had changed.

            He would just have to find out.

            He could even press his ear to the wall, to the door, listen to the happenings inside the pool, see if they spoke the same words. A shiver ran down John’s spine. In almost literally reliving the same moment, would he feel the same things? Would he be struck with a stroke of déjà vu? Would he be dragged back there, stuck to the floor like stone in his bomb coat, and get stuck outside the door? If he mouthed along to the words Sherlock said, would it lend them power or take it away?

            Probably neither.

            It was probably a ridiculous thought. He didn’t plan to press his ear to the wall, anyway.

            He wouldn’t be seeing Sherlock, either—not if he had anything to say about it. No, the only one he’d be seeing was Moriarty, over the top of his Browning, just before shooting him dead for what he did, what he would do, what he wasn’t going to do, to Sherlock.

            John smacked the engage button with a little more force than necessary.

            He was ready.

 

 

 

            The garden, thankfully, was intact, and water was waiting beneath the gazebo. It was if nothing had changed in that time—but of course it had. All of it. Now, John thought, he, real-time him, past him, knew Sherlock.

            For a moment, he found he was jealous of himself. Perhaps not right at this moment, knowing what would happen to him soon enough—or perhaps precisely at this moment. Right now, John thought, noting the dimming light of the evening, he and Sherlock would be sitting at the flat, papers fluttering slightly at the draft that tends to come with having an entire wall blown out, no matter how well they’d covered it since the explosion. But beyond the fact that they’d be sitting about in their coats to ward off the chill, it would be just a regular night at 221B, John typing up a blog entry, Sherlock screaming at the telly and all its stupidity. That’d be up until John left, and got kidnapped, and—well. And then John would cease to be jealous of himself, for that part of the night, and start again as soon as they got back to the flat and shared the sofa like they always did.

            And they’d spend the next months—god, the next year, and then some—dashing about London, giggling like madmen, sprawling on the sofa and subjecting one another to bad movies and worse experiments. John made his way out of the garden quietly, trying to ignore the discomfort of the evening’s drizzling rain on his skin. Not that there was any risk of Sherlock seeing him, which was really the only thing he had to worry about, by this point, but—best to avoid the possibility of Mycroft catching him on some surveillance camera and trying to get in the way of his plans. He made his way out to a main road.

            Then again, Mycroft would probably be able to track him whether he liked it or not. He’d just have to hope the man was otherwise distracted, or else had a little faith that John knew what the hell he was doing. (God, not that John had the slightest idea, but he was ready to try.) John’s hand curled around the wallet in his pocket. He had that money Mycroft had given him—he could probably take a cab, if he wanted. But if John had anything to say about it, he wouldn’t be spending much longer here—he was ready to get this done, to save Sherlock and go home and deal with whatever changes came with a dead Moriarty. _All good ones,_ he thought. He pulled out his wallet and thumbed through his bills. He had enough, certainly, to take the Underground to the nearest stop to the pool and get out. No, he’d get a full day’s pass, just to be sure, just in case he had to tail Jim for a while before he could get his shot, just in case Jim transformed back into the timid bloke from tech support and crawled back underground to inconspicuously take a train from the scene.

            He entered the nearest station and got in the queue for his ticket, leaning back against the wall. Right now, Sherlock was fretting about when Moriarty would send his last case, checking his mobile every five and ten minutes to make sure he hadn’t missed something. But in twenty-four hours, he’ll be unreadable. He’ll be pacing back and forth, and John, John-from-the-past, won’t know why, if it was boredom or unease or if it was because Sherlock got a full night’s rest last night and doesn’t know what to do with himself. But John knew, now, or figured—he was probably racking his brain over Moriarty’s plans, _I will burn the heart out of you_ , trying to decipher it, because everything Moriarty said had a meaning.

            In forty-eight hours, they’ll be bickering about whether Sherlock really needs all seventy-two of those slides on the kitchen table right at this instant, or can’t they be moved until whenever he’s going to be using them next so that John can have his bloody dinner on a solid surface? Sherlock will sneer and recommend John eat elsewhere, and then John will shake his head and look up and see Sherlock putting on his coat.

            “What are you doing?” he’ll ask, because he’s pretty sure that Lestrade wouldn’t be texting them with a case so soon after the debacle with Moriarty.  
            “I’m guiding you to the location of a solid surface on which to consume dinner,” Sherlock will say, with an arrogance and aloofness that cannot quite mask his smirk. “You obviously can’t find one yourself. Come, John.”

            And Sherlock will sweep out the door, and John will follow, and not think about why, and not think about the stupid grin on his face. He won’t think, yet, that it might be because this mad bloke stirs his heart not with a spoon but with something like an industrial egg-beater, and that—not the fumes or the blows to the head or the flashing lights of cameras—is why he’s gotten so stupidly scrambled over Sherlock Holmes.

            John glanced at his mobile as he stood on the train. He’d have plenty of time to camp out, provided he could do so in such a way that he wouldn’t be seen. He had no idea where all of Moriarty’s snipers were stationed, but he could be relatively certain that none of them were at his planned point of exit in the back of the building—or very few, if there were any.

            He bounced on the balls of his feet as the train stopped at Baker Street. Right now, he could climb off, run up to the flat. Sherlock would still be up there, even if John wasn’t.

            “Hey,” he’d say, breathless from dashing up the stairs so quickly.

            “Mm,” Sherlock would say, staring at his phone. “Fast date, was it?” Then he’d look up, and see John, dressed differently, with deeper lines in his face, with a newer mobile. He’d stop, speechless, John thought—for once. Because this would be something without an immediate explanation, something he would have to sit back and analyze. Would he reach the correct conclusion? Was the only explanation of all of the facts, “Aha, John has time-traveled”?

            Would it be as it had been when John had appeared in the pool, in the coat that for that split-second Sherlock could not have known was filled with bombs? Would he have to blink away the worry that John had left, and become someone else, and returned for reasons unknown and fearsome?

            Or maybe he _would_ deduce it. He was Sherlock, after all. Maybe his face would light up with the glow of knowing something so secret and so unlikely as time-travel, as his own flatmate time-traveling. Maybe he’d shoot from his chair and jump to John and maneuver him onto the sofa with warm and excited hands. He’d run to the kitchen and get his own damned laptop, because Sherlock would have to keep John a secret from himself. “Tell me,” he’d say.

            “What?” John would say, even though he’d already be able to feel Sherlock’s next words vibrating through his body like visceral premonition.

            “Tell me _everything_.”

            And maybe John would. He’d tell Sherlock about all the times he’d seen him, and Sherlock would gasp, “ _Obvious_ ,” and he’d have to know by then, wouldn’t he, that later, when John diverted the conversation with his sodding comment about James Bond, it wasn’t dislike or disinterest in whatever Sherlock was about to say, it was fear, fear and nerves that whatever was about to happen was going to flip his stomach too fast, that he’d blurt something Not Good that would ruin it all, that he’d overreact, that he’d underreact, that he’d completely misunderstood the nature of what Sherlock was about to say and shout out something nonsensical before hearing his words, that Sherlock wanted something from the relationship that John couldn’t give—Sherlock would have to know that when John got scared and changed the topic, it wasn’t, it _wasn’t_ a lack of affection, of—of love. He’d know, if he only knew that John had come all this way, through time and space and everything, for him, why John did it. He’d know John cared. He’d hear John’s red-herring comment and smile to himself and remember John-from-the-future and know everything that John was going to get around to saying, someday.

            He could run up to 221B and Sherlock’s face would light up, and he’d shove John onto the sofa and take notes. John would tell him about saving him from his overdose.

He would probably wax poetic, as he did sometimes, with choice phrases like, “What the _fuck_ were you thinking?” and “You’re so un-bloody-believably goddamn lucky I was there.”

            Then Sherlock would say something that would beat John’s poetry to the ground, something like, “I am,” all quiet and in the same tones of his eminent confession several hours later, when John, the other John, will panic.

            John could run up to 221B and skip all of that, and tell Sherlock, “Come here, you git; I missed you so fucking much,” and wrap him up in a hug, and run his fingers through his hair over and over until it felt real again, and leave Sherlock to his deductions.

            But John wasn’t going to do any of those things. He sighed the train took off from Baker Street. He wouldn’t do any of those things, because he couldn’t; then Sherlock would know, and the universe would implode. A hundred thousand threads of things that would be would unravel until it was just himself and Sherlock standing there, and then one or the other of them would unravel, too. And John would be alone again.

            Sherlock would know and he’d try to hunt down the time machine. He would curl into himself for days, trying to parse time-travel, and John would sit at the pool all strapped up to bombs and Jim would blow him up out of boredom alone, while he waited for a Sherlock who’d show up a week late.

            Instead, John was going to stake out a spot from which to shoot Jim Moriarty down, and then flee, and then wait and see from there whether it would be safe enough to tell Sherlock what happened, whether past-John would pop out of existence in favor of this new timeline. Whatever it was—whatever happened—it was bound to be better than the alternative.

 

 

 

            Once John got to the pool building, stepping carefully around puddles of the recent rain as he scouted out the area, the choice was obvious: from the window of a building across the street, he could perfectly make out the door through which Moriarty was due to exit in about an hour, if everything played out exactly as it had done. There were no other snipers in sight; none in this building, anyway.

            John narrowed his eyes at the flicker of a shadow around the corner of a building across the street as he picked his way into the building from which he’d take his shot. Jim was setting up already, of course. Maybe that was the same man who’d subdued John and wrapped him in the coat, running off now to tell his boss that John was ready to be dealt with, while John sat on the floor of the same locker room from which he’d seen murder flash across young Jim’s eyes, guarded by the stoic driver of the vehicle which had brought him here. John had been trying to formulate plans, trying to devise an escape, trying to devise some way to tell Sherlock what he needed to, if Jim made him read lines into the phone.

            It hadn’t been until he’d heard the echo of familiar footsteps and a voice that made him shiver with its blending into that place of stillness and murder, it hadn’t been until he was being pushed toward the exit to the pool, that John realized that Moriarty had planned all along to use John in person.

            John stopped on the third floor when he glimpsed an open doorway down the hall. He peered in: the occupants of this flat had recently moved out. Given the late hour of the night, he’d be fine here for what he needed to do.

            He could still hear Jim’s words hissed into his ear— _Out you go, Johnny Boy._ He still had nightmares about them, sometimes.

            John looked at his mobile again. It would all be up to waiting, now, then. In the meantime, he’d keep a sharp eye out for any movement that could be Moriarty’s men.

            Soon—very soon—he, past him, him of right this moment, would step out covered in bombs and watch fear flash across Sherlock’s face. In the very few seconds he’d had to think about it, John had been torn between being saddened that such a thought could cross Sherlock’s mind, shocked that Sherlock could possibly think that John could have been the mastermind of all of it—that Sherlock could fathom John having such an ability to act as to have tricked him this entire time—and disgusted that he was having these thoughts at all, because Sherlock’s moment of doubt was reasonable and passed over his face quickly in favor of a dire sobriety that was his swallowing down earlier words about caring about lives being a mistake. It was the stony acceptance that it might be up to Sherlock, this time, to be a hero, whether he believed they existed or not; it was the stony acceptance that John might be the one being the hero, and that the cost of doing so might be higher than either of them wanted to consider.

            In just minutes, or maybe now—hard to say; god, it was ages in there but John didn’t need a time machine to know how elastic time was when it came to things like bombs, like death—Moriarty would stroll out into the pool. Must be now, John thought—he’d been waiting here for ages, too, hadn’t he? Maybe time all around the pool was stretched; maybe his heartbeat here was syncing up with his within those walls and time was slow whether he wanted it to be or not.

            So Moriarty would enter now, then, and he’d have his sliding vocal pitches that had reminded John with a shiver of Sherlock’s lapses in self-control, his hopping through the air at the scent of a murder. John would be able to do nothing but watch them walk circles around one another. They’d stare and share their half-playful half-lethal banter and there John would be, stuck in the middle, a little man caught in the dealings of gods—except they neither of them were gods. But they would play the part, all the same, and maybe feel it; and John would keep steady breaths under Sherlock’s eyes so thoroughly piercing through one person, under Sherlock’s attention so focused and sharp on just one man. John would attribute it to panic, to the direness of the situation, the little shaking in his chest at seeing the intensity in Sherlock’s eyes as he prowled around Moriarty. But John didn’t panic; it was something else.

            He’d wait and watch those two men play god, pin each other to display boards with their eyes alone, until he could catch his chance, until he could hope that at least if he or Sherlock was going to go down, Moriarty would too, and right here where he deserved to. Moriarty would go down right here where he dreamed up murder in the first place, John thought. Moriarty would go down right here where he first committed it.

            Maybe now Jim was leaving. Sherlock was throwing John’s coat across the floor and touching him up and down to look for more bombs, and John’s knees were wobbling in weakness at it all, at adrenaline finally failing him and at Sherlock’s reverence, and at Sherlock’s completely abysmal knowledge of gun safety, as he scratched his sodding head with the thing and thanked John with stumbled little words. _That thing you did was, uh, good_ , he might have been saying right now. Good, the opposite to Not Good, the highest compliment he could have given John past those lips that were quivering a bit with nerves.

John felt, here, now, his heart change speeds, though whether it pumped his blood faster or slower, he couldn’t say. Was he still synced up with himself in there? Was Sherlock throwing off the coat, scratching his head with the gun, saying John was _Good_? If so, it had almost certainly sped up.

            And then—now—Jim would come back, and the horror would wash over them anew, and John would know, right then, that he was going to die.

            Except, of course, that he didn’t, neither of them did, because Moriarty got his phone call and then left.

            And _there_ , John thought, narrowing his eyes at the door as it cracked open _—_ there he was. He felt his hackles rise; he felt his jaw clench too tightly in barely restrained hatred and the resulting faint tang of blood from biting his tongue.

            He raised his Browning with steady hands to fix his aim on Moriarty, tasting the blood on his tongue as it mingled with saliva and seeing through his mind’s eye blood in the puddles in the street. He swallowed down anticipated gunpowder.

            John lifted his thumb to turn off the safety, and gritted his teeth as it slipped, sweaty or sheeted in humidity or shaky in nerves or whatever it was. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, inhaling petrichor and exhaling smoke and thunder and determination. He reached his steadied thumb up again, and willed it dry and sure. _Chin up, Watson,_ he told himself, as he turned the safety off, slowly, deliberately. _This is the easiest shot you’ve ever had to make, and not just because you have a good view to the target_.

            Light rain still fell, but for a shot like this, it was no considerable obstruction. He took a slow breath in, and it was shakier than he expected, which was, perhaps, why his hands quivered. _You never get nervous like this,_ he told himself. It certainly wasn’t lack of adrenaline; he felt the heat of it pouring through his veins as Moriarty took a few steps out the door, still on the phone.

            “Oh, you dear cruel thing,” he could hear Jim barking out with laughter as he walked, the sound carrying all the way through the damp air and open window.

            John took another steadying breath, willed his hands to stop shaking. They did, but only for a moment.

            _Just do it, Watson. You can’t miss this shot._

He wished Sherlock were over his shoulder right now, telling him as much instead.

            He took a deep breath in.

            He let it out slowly.

            He pressed the trigger.

            Even as the bullet left the chamber, John was thinking, _Ah, fuck._

            The gun, the bullet, had slipped from its intended trajectory, like John’s thumb from the safety, like the bloody sweaty chill of rain and panic. John felt his muscles relax and then tense again, preparing for another shot, but it was wrong, all wrong, his chest heaving erratically instead of deadly calm, his limbs dancing with electric discharge and not heavy with purpose. He had to, though, had to try again. He lined his gun up with the dark figure below and curled his finger snug against the uncompressed trigger, exhaling deeply.

            The sound of another shot cracked.

            It wasn’t his.

            John threw his body to the floor, up against the wall and out of view through the window. Maybe Jim had more snipers set up than he thought. Had they figured out his location from his one sodding awful shot? They might be keeping an eye on this very window. John could crawl across the floor and escape, but to where? _Shit_.

            John tried to slow his breathing, to gather his bearings. Why the _hell_ were his muscles twitching; why had his hands gone shaky at all for the first shot? That hadn’t happened to him since he first picked up a gun, or since the first few times, anyway. He’d felt an uncontrollable rushing through his veins, as if what had made him shaky was an excess of adrenaline, or some similarly hot and burning chemical, something that made his muscles tired and twitchy and lazy. John looked at his mobile and dizziness in his gut took him lower to the ground as he realized that only minutes had passed since he’d crouched up at the open window and taken aim. He felt inexplicably older. Only something like deteriorating eyesight or frail hands should’ve made him miss that shot. He stretched his hands out in front of him and glanced over them: they looked the same age as they had five minutes or five days ago. He curled and uncurled his fingers; most of the quivering had subsided.

            At least whoever had cracked that shot at him had awful aim, too; it hadn’t even come through the right window, if it went through any at all.

            _It wasn’t aimed at you_ , came a low voice from beside him, and John groaned and rubbed his eyes and tried to decide if he was still under the effects of the belladonna after all this time. _It wasn’t necessarily a bad shot, either. You never looked to see if it hit its target._

            “Sherlock,” John mumbled into his hands as he ran them over his face again. He wanted to ask, _Where were you when I was taking the shot?_ But that was a stupid question. When John was taking the shot, Sherlock was still inside the building, standing beside the pool, helping John up onto his unsteady legs, walking them through the locker room and through the hallway out to the front, muttering to himself about the possibilities of who the caller could’ve been, of what would be important enough for Jim to call off his plans or if he’d been intending to do so all along, and this was just another play in the game. John was leaning into Sherlock when his legs failed him and doing his damnedest to tune it all out, to transport himself to someplace that reeked a little less of the death of something dear to him.

            He wanted to ask this Sherlock, the one here, the one he was imagining, _Why didn’t you help me steady my hands?_ But that was stupid, too. He just said, “Stop.” He said it to thin air and he couldn’t have cared less.

            _You don’t understand,_ Sherlock went on. John could hear the frustrated growl he’d have in his throat, were he actually saying such a thing. _What if the other shot was also aimed at Moriarty?_

“ _Why,_ ” John hissed out in a whisper, “would one of Moriarty’s m— _oh._ ” What if it was _him_? What if he missed this shot and went back to someplace else to try again? John peeked over the edge of the window.

            No Jim—no dead body—but then again, it’d been long enough that he, or whoever had taken the shot, could’ve dashed out and made off with it. John squinted to see if there was any blood on the pavement, but in the black of the night and with the puddles of rain cluttering the sidewalks and streets, it was impossible to tell. Unless he went down there himself to inspect the area, there was no way to tell if he’d made his shot and whisked Jim off to dispose of the body, and he wasn’t about to put himself out in the open like that, not in an area where two gunshots had just rung out. The police would be arriving at any minute, if they weren’t already in front of the pool, taking John and Sherlock’s statements, throwing blankets around their shoulders.

            There was, though, one way to tell for certain—and that was to get his arse back to his time machine, and try it himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might guess from my beginning note, I am flying (alllll the way from the middle of nowhere, I mean, Nebraska) to Atlanta to go to [221BCon](http://www.221bcon.com/) because I am just that psyched about the idea of a weekend full of Sherlock things and Sherlock fans. If any of you guys are going to be there, it would basically be my dream to meet you. I know it's a little ways off chronologically, but I wanted to say that now because I am awful at containing excitement. 
> 
> Um, and, no thanks to the slight encouragement of some individual(s) I am going to indulge myself a little. I'll be cosplaying John, and on at least one of the days, I will in fact be cosplaying Moebius!John. Um. Complete with notebook with copyright date 2012 full of John's notes (and Sherlock's map), and a fake version (because I'm not made of money, jeez) of John's exact phone that little!Sherlock would've seen, and, and things like that. (I mean, it looks like a regular John cosplay except for that secretly I have a notebook and fake phone and stuff in my pocket, but whatever.)  
> ...But essentially if you are going to be there you should tell me because I am weird and really want you to sign John's notebook because that would be awesome. @_@


	13. Cosmic Strings Like Rubber Bands (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Right now, below him, was himself, thinking that the building might blow at any moment and trying to be ready for it, trying not to think of things he’d wanted to do still, trying not to think of the eyeballs Sherlock had left out on the counter three days before and the idea that he would never know their fate.
> 
> _Calm down, Watson_ , he told himself when he realized how much his breathing had sped up. Only after what must have been a full minute did he realize that he was breathing in and out in time to words, to Sherlock’s words at this very pool, on this very day. Maybe now. _People do_ (in, in) _little else_ (out, out).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter because ACTION.
> 
> I have a goal of getting to the second interlude (which should be after the next one or two chapters) before 221BCon. Which I think will only happen if I put the pedal to the metal during my spring break next week -- we'll see. Your moral support is appreciated. XD

           When John arrived at the pool building again later—well—at just about the same time as before, really—he found himself skirting around the brick, trying to find the best place from which to take his shot. He tried to remember where the shot had come from, but it was hopeless—he’d hit the ground just as soon as he’d heard it, in case more were coming. He’d just have to choose the best spot available, and if it happened to be the same as where the shot had come from—well—hopefully it had worked, hopefully Moriarty was gone because he—well—the other him—the him that was soon to be now—had rushed into the street and cleared off before anyone could notice. If it wasn’t where it had come from, then good—perhaps the spot he’d choose now would be better, would kill Jim for sure.

            He shivered with déjà vu as he glanced up at the window from around a corner and spotted faint movement in the only window cracked open in the flats across the street. He needed to get to the other side of the narrow alleyway on that side of the pool but—did it matter if he saw himself? Andrew had seen himself about a hundred times.

            Then again, John thought, look what happened to Andrew.

            He winced to himself and checked the window one more time, confirming that the other John wasn’t looking before dashing around the corner and into cover from which he could hopefully climb to a slightly better vantage point. John swore to himself when he looked back up at the window and saw familiar eyes peeking out at where he’d just been. It was like some kind of fucked-up mirror to the past, in a different way than how all mirrors were mirrors to the past (said a physics lecture that had vaguely enraptured John at the time, the idea that looking at a mirror was a bit like viewing stale light, just like seeing anything).

            “That was you,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. “Who you saw, before. That was you, just now. Not one of Moriarty’s men.”

            “Me setting up to take the shot,” John whispered. From where he was now, though, he could see that there was a reasonable opportunity to climb up to the top of the building housing the pool. If that had really been him, and he hadn’t heard any shots until Jim walked out, didn’t that mean that if he took those stairs, he wouldn’t run into any of Jim’s men? He would have heard more gunshots. John paused and, now out of view of himself from the window, dashed back across the alley to the side of the pool building.

            Temptation overwhelmed him and he pressed one hand to the wall, as if he could feel the events occurring inside through it. But he was more lost than last time, no heart keeping meter; it would be running fast all the way through this time around, between his sprinting and the climbing and knowing, being certain, that he was going to take this shot, and he, him up in the window, was going to take his, too.

            _Shit,_ John thought. _I need to stay out of its path._ He’d miss this shot because John’s other shot, his terrible, finger-slipping shot, hit himself instead, if he got in the bullet’s way.  He closed his eyes, trying to visualize where it had gone. His gun would have dipped down a bit, down and to the left. Then he’d stay up and far right of its path.

            John leaned into the wall, tried to envision the pool within. Maybe right now he was only twenty, thirty feet from Sherlock, and one not passed out from overdose, one not kicked around by kids, one not strung out and shaking from withdrawal, but the Sherlock John knew best. In there was the Sherlock who did something stupid, like agree to meet Moriarty alone, and then something baffling and amazing and equally stupid again, like ignore John’s request that he run and save himself. This was the Sherlock who curled up on sofas and watched bad films and grudgingly ate barely enough to sustain a human male effectively and who hardly ever even smoked, anymore, and one who pushed back when he was pushed.

            John pushed off from the wall. He slid over to the rickety outside stairs to the roof.

            This Sherlock, as much as any of the others—maybe even more, if that were possible—was one worth saving.

            The stairs squeaked, but only barely; the ambient drizzle outside muffled much of the noise at any reasonable distance, John estimated. He kept a wary eye out for anyone of Jim’s, gripping his gun tightly in his hands and already willing them not to start shaking again.

            He crouched on the roof once he got to the top, pressing his hands cautiously against its surface as he gauged his options. Right now, below him, was himself, thinking that the building might blow at any moment and trying to be ready for it, trying not to think of things he’d wanted to do still, trying not to think of the eyeballs Sherlock had left out on the counter three days before and the idea that he would never know their fate. (Sherlock dumped them in the rubbish the morning after this. “Moriarty’s _game_ completely ruined that experiment,” he lamented. “They needed out for exactly seventeen hours, but I had to go see that bloody painting, of course.”)

            But he, John-below-him, didn’t know what John knew, or else John-below-him would chase Jim out the door and shoot him down for good in just a few minutes. John-below-him didn’t know that Jim would frame Sherlock like that, would somehow, _somehow_ cause Sherlock to—to do something so stupid and drastic as jumping off the bloody hospital roof. John-below-him didn’t know that in just about two years he’d be above himself; he didn’t know that Mycroft had met him before he met Mycroft. He didn’t know that in two years he’d be helping young Sherlock cross the street. How could he?

            Through the muffle of the shock, John-below-him must have even missed the shots right outside the pool. Unless, of course, those hadn’t happened then. John screwed his eyes shut and blinked the thought away; puzzling out this time travel business was not where his attention ought to be. He crossed the roof of the building on his knees, hunching low to keep from sight. He was at about the same level as himself across the street, but so long as he remained lower than the elevated ledge around the building, he’d be fine. Anyway, there was a small structure closer toward the front edge behind which he could wait more comfortably. As soon as he heard the door click open, it would be only one lunging step to the edge, from which he could make his shot and easily jump back, or run back to the stairs and leap down them to make off with Jim’s body before himself across the street looked out the window again.

            _Calm down, Watson,_ he told himself when he realized how much his breathing had sped up. He leaned his head back against the wall of the structure and slowed his breaths to a carefully marked pace. Only after what must have been a full minute did he realize that he was breathing in and out in time to words, to Sherlock’s words at this very pool, on this very day. Maybe now. _People do_ (in, in) _little else_ (out, out), slower and slower, and without laser-sights dancing onto their bodies again he had time to absorb it, to lean up against Sherlock’s wisdom once more. That was part of what had held John back, wasn’t it? People. And all they did was talking, yes, but speech was powerful, wasn’t it? People talking, that was John swinging his fist into the Chief Superintendent; people talking, that was months of murmurs after Sherlock jumped, little whispers about _that’s a shame, it is, we all got taken in by him like that_ , bits of _always knew that bloody freak was a liar_ , bits of maybe the things that made Sherlock leap in the first place. People talking was that damned phone conversation.

            The door beneath John swung open, and he leapt over to the ledge to take aim, this time at the back of Moriarty’s head. _People do little else,_ said his breathing; _that’s what people do,_ said a shuddering quiver in his chest that became almost wracking, that felt almost like wrenching out the last remains of trauma from his body. John gripped his gun tightly and once more turned the safety off. _That’s what people do._ He gripped tighter, pointing at Jim’s back; a nice, big, impossible-to-miss target, from here. _That’s what people do._ This time, Jim was going to die.

            _That’s_ (tha-tha-thud)

            _what_ (quivery-thud)

            _people_ (through-the-ribs-thud)

            _do—_

            John’s finger wrapped around the trigger before he so much as registered what he was doing, before he realized that his hands were quivering with his chest, before he realized that his first shot, from across the street, from the flat, had rang true with the end of the mantra crawling over his head.

            “ _Fuck,_ ” he whispered to himself, the recoil of the gun rippling through him. He ducked down before Jim could look up to see the shot, if he looked this way before looking to the flats, and who the _fuck_ even knew where John’s bullet had gone this time, who _knew_ , but it wasn’t through Moriarty, that was for damn sure—

            John was scrambling across the roof, thudding down the stairs, splashing through puddles on the pavement before he could think, like his insides were running twelve paces in front of him and he only had enough brainpower left to know to keep up. He rounded the corner and there was an inconspicuous black car, and there was Jim sliding in. Tremors tore through John’s muscles, and he shoved the gun back into the back of his trousers and _sprinted_.

            His chest heaved harder as he chased the car out onto the main road, as he inventoried his surroundings at fifteen miles an hour. The car had turned left, which meant that at the next big intersection it would almost certainly make a right, because the other way was a dead end and straight would only take him right by a police station. Not, John thought, that that would stop a man like Moriarty, but it was worth betting on, and his gut said right, and so he raced between two buildings to his left.

            “ _Shit,_ ” he muttered to himself, confronted by the side of one of them, but he climbed up the rickety stairs up the side and sprinted across the top again, taking shaky breaths as he remembered that this time if he missed the jump from this rooftop to the next there’d be no one to take him to hospital, no one to completely overlook how ridiculous jumping across roofs of buildings was and instead critique John’s leaping abilities while John laid broken on the pavement.

            But he cleared that leap, and the next, and cursed up and down the wall when he got to the edge of the last building and found its side without any stairs or ladder. He’d quite nearly beaten Jim’s car there, though, he noticed with a half a grin as it came upon the corner, all perfectly law-abiding and inconspicuous, all naturally belonging on the streets like _Jim from IT_ belonged in St. Bart’s. John glanced down at the eave of the café, took in a deep breath, and tumbled onto it, letting it slow him down and then catching its edge on his fingers just enough as he reached the end that when his feet and then his right hip hit the pavement below, he was reasonably certain he hadn’t broken anything.

            Jim’s car made a right, just as John thought it might.

            _Ah, dammit,_ thought John, climbing to his feet. Too slow; he ought to have gotten there in time to leap onto it or to throw something through the window. But he could do this, he could still fucking do this. He took in a deep breath and cut across the street, dizzied by the fall or by adrenaline or by the enormity of what he was doing, he wasn’t certain. He thought to draw his gun and simply shoot, but there were far too many cameras here, and if making the world aware that there were currently two of him in London by virtue of his letting loose bullets at an apparently average car in a very public area didn’t fuck up space-time or at the very least his own life, then nothing would. And anyway, at this point it would be an impossible shot, with his head positively swimming, with his belly rallying all the rest of his innards for mutiny.

            John tripped on his foot—if, at this point, it was his foot, and not some traitorous appendage claiming autonomy—and fell in a sweeping arc to the street, and his vision was swimming, or, or screeching, no, that wasn’t right—his _ears_ were screeching, his _vision_ was blinding lights, his stomach was sick as he shook too hard to pull himself up and a taxi swerved violently to avoid his hunched form in the middle of the street. John could feel the heat of the wheels as it whirred past, could swear that some of the hairs on his head got caught up in the spinning and yanked forcibly from his head, because that was certainly a much more comforting thought than that his brain was prickling up out of his skull and seceding as well.

            “ _Jesus,_ ” John breathed, and was pleased to find that his lungs were still on his side. He, half-stumbling, presenting a very reasonable peace treaty to his legs, dragged himself up to the edge of the street before the next car came by, thanking whatever kind of fucking psycho powers-that-be that let time travel exist in the first place for that it was the middle of the night, and not the middle of the day.

            “Close call,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder.

            It was too bloody close. It was frighteningly close. It was…it was, John thought, mostly, unbelievably lucky that he didn’t die then and there, a bloody pulp on a rainy night in London. He leaned against the wall, hands braced just above his knees.

            There was no way he could go back to the pool again. He’d no idea where his shot had gone, this time; avoiding it would be problematic at the very least, especially since the number of spots from which he’d be under cover but also have a good enough view of Jim to make a shot, with this bloody awful track record he’d accrued so far, were more or less zero. It was probably, he thought, why he hadn’t seen another of him running about, hadn’t heard a third shot.

            He could go back and wait at this corner, and—and what? Jump onto the car? What the hell had been his plan this time, anyway? If he did jump on, he’d probably get thrown off the top and into the street again, to be run over for good. And now he’d lost the car, and had no way of finding Jim. He knew this because Sherlock had tried to locate him a day or two after this, with no luck. He certainly couldn’t try to chase the car the entire way back to its destination, waiting at each consecutive corner. There wasn’t enough room in the Holmes’ back garden for that many time machines, and there was no way in hell he could pull it off anyway, before being arrested for existing in thirty places at once.

            There was, though, at least one other time that John knew where Jim was, where he himself definitely _wasn’t_. He’d stolen the Crown Jewels, after all; John wasn’t likely to forget the horror that had bubbled up inside him when he’d gotten _that_ news.

            Actually making a shot when Jim approached the Tower of London was out, of course—but that didn’t mean John couldn’t discern where he’d been beforehand—even just minutes beforehand—and slow him down, and trap him, there.

            _People might talk._

            _People do little else._

            If he were going to put a bullet through Jim’s head anyway, what was the harm in slowing him up by talking? John pulled out his mobile, considered it in his hand as if its weight could be the answer to a debate starting up between two sides of his mind.

            “Don’t,” said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder.

           John grinned to himself, still a bit dizzy. _You_ would _say that._ He slid his mobile open and thumbed through the contact. _We don’t even know if this will work at all. Probably good to figure it out now rather than bank on it and find out it doesn’t work later._

“Not,” Sherlock said, “necessary.”

            John paused at one contact, taking a deep breath to clear his mind, and pressed _dial_. He placed the phone to his ear.

            “Ah,” said the voice at the other end, “Hello. I was wondering if you might call at some point during your…excursions.” John could almost hear the grimace at the other end. “I would prefer you kept the…fire…to a minimum.”

            “How did you know it was—you know, me? And not—”

            “John is currently in a taxi with my brother, on your way back to Baker Street,” Mycroft said, and John concluded that there must be someone else about, potentially listening in. “I saw no reason whatsoever that _he_ would be the one calling me. In fact, I do believe Sherlock would forcibly remove the phone from his hand before allowing him to do so.”

            “You’re probably right.”

            “You sound short on breath.”

            “Bit, yeah. But I’m not going to go back and shoot _again_ , so you don’t have to worry about more gunshots.”

            “Obviously,” said Mycroft. “Or I’d have heard them already. In any case,” John could imagine him checking his watch, probably late for some sort of election-rigging meeting, “I am certain you called for a reason.”

            “I need Moriarty’s number.”

            “Ah. Naturally. I suppose I shouldn’t bother asking when you’re going to use it? Supposing, for instance, that it will have changed since then.”

            “It’s for later,” John said. “Hopefully it won’t have done.”

            “It may be more useful for you to call me just prior to when you require it.”

            John frowned. That much was probably true; Mycroft would certainly be up-to-date on the number if anyone was. But then, of course, there was the matter of his interfering. Would Mycroft try to step in, stop John from whatever he was going to do just because it might be slightly inconvenient to explain away gunshots in central London? Might he infer something from the date itself, anticipate Jim’s break-in? Then again, that wouldn’t necessarily be so bad. It would be a change, at least. “All right,” John finally said. “I’ll phone you then.”

            “It would be convenient to know when you plan to call,” Mycroft said. “I can ensure I am…available.”

            John sighed. “Next year. March twentieth. Late morning or early afternoon.”

            “Noted.”

            “Right.”

            “Incidentally, I…as I understand it, you did quite a…selfless…thing, this evening. In the past, as it were.”

            John didn’t know how to answer that. “That’s…true, I guess. It was—it was the right thing. I’d not have watched Sherlock die, not on my…” he found himself trailing off, watching Sherlock die behind his closed eyelids. “Not on my life.”

            “Not many would share that sentiment.”

            “Yourself among them,” John muttered, “apparently.”

            “Thank you,” Mycroft said. John wasn’t certain or if Mycroft hadn’t heard him, or if he’d simply chosen not to respond. “Since my brother’s manners are abysmal at best, I thought I ought to say so in case he never did.”

            “He thanked me just fine,” John snapped.

            _That thing you did was, uh, good_.

            He hung up.  
             
  
  
            John took the tube back as near as he could to his machine, and fought through the strengthening wind and rain as he walked back to the Holmes’ back garden. His machine stood just outside the gazebo, beside the one he’d arrived in the first time he came to take his shot. He hadn’t thought, at the time, about changing the coordinates for being in the same place twice, but it appeared not to be a problem; perhaps the thing had a mechanism built in to keep it from landing on itself. It was certainly the sort of problem that the kind of person who could build a sodding time machine would anticipate.

            This time around, the machine had landed just far enough away that it didn’t disrupt the other. That happened to place it slightly on top of Mummy Holmes’ roses, but John suspected that they, unlike the person he was trying to save in the process of landing the machine thusly, would simply recover on their own, or else could be easily replaced.

            He’d landed just later than himself, and apparently left before he got back the first time; he hadn’t noticed this extra machine there at all. By the time he’d gotten back the first time, the rain was pouring freely from the sky, and John had been in rather too much a hurry to have noticed the destroyed roses. The rain was picking up already; his other self would be coming back soon. John climbed into the machine, trying to shield his eyes from the rain. Of course the damned thing wouldn’t have reasonable enough lighting for an average human being to use; probably Andrew, who knew how to use the damned coordinate system, had planned on landing somewhere with a roof every time. That, or he decided that he’d only be going to the day his wife died, and knew it hadn’t rained then, so who sodding needed well-lit buttons?

            Raindrops batted at John’s eyelashes as his fingers slipped over the keys. He finally managed to punch in the 20th of March, 2011. He was fairly certain, at least. John squinted. Yes, that was it.

            _Tower Hill, here I come._


	14. Cosmic Strings Like Rubber Bands (III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John pressed _call_ and raised the phone to his ear.
> 
> “Hello, this is Jim. May I ask who’s calling?”
> 
> John licked his lips. He took in a slow breath, and stood and drifted toward the door of the café, ready to wander out and intercept Moriarty and do whatever it took to wrangle him into an alley. He itched at his back where his gun was tucked into his trousers; he could do it at gunpoint if he had to.
> 
> “I want you to stop where you are and approach the café door to your right,” he said. “I have a gun trained on you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued and eternal thanks to the lovely [Morwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) for beta-ing. Any errors you see here are probably due to me mucking about with the chapter more than I ought to have done after she'd already looked at it. XD
> 
> The next chapter will be the last part of this section of the story (eep! brace yourselves!). Then, we'll have another interlude. Since I'm trying to have the interlude posted before 221BCon, you can expect (fingers crossed; I am very busy lately but am trying my best!) the next chapter next week, and the interlude the week after that.

            Of course, if he was going to be out and about in broad daylight in such a public place where he-his-past-self was not, where someone else could know him and see him, he was going to need a bit of a disguise. Mycroft knew he would be here today anyway—no reason not to use some of the money he’d given John days-or-years ago.

So when John arrived in 2011, his first stop was to a clothing shop to pick up something different—not disgustingly so, but it _was_ on Mycroft’s coin, so he allowed himself some nice khaki slacks and a dress shirt that was blessedly less smelly than his poor jumper, still slightly damp from the rain. He also found a jacket that said _I’m a tourist from someplace south who finds this place unbearably cold_ that nicely masked his gun.

            If he wanted any hope of hiding his face, though, he’d need a hat. John grinned to himself at a small display in the shop. _A deerstalker. Why not?_ It fit perfectly well with the tourist image, someone who felt pretty smug with himself for being in the know about London’s latest hero.

            _If only he’d stayed that way to everyone else_ , John thought. In just a few months, the display with this hat would be taken down. A deerstalker would be just a deerstalker. They’d show up in droves at charity shops and in rubbish bins because nobody wanted much to emulate Sherlock Holmes after he turned out to be a fake all along.

            John purchased the clothes and changed in a toilet at the Tube station before returning to his machine to drop off his own clothing. _No need to accidentally scandalize Mummy Holmes by stripping naked in her back garden._ The shrubberies were nice, but probably not the ultimate protection. He laid his clothes against the seat of the machine and looked at his mobile. He was making good time—Jim’s heist wouldn’t occur for another three hours. That gave John plenty of time to get to Tower Hill and scope the place out.

            There was also, of course, the small task of getting Moriarty’s number. John halfheartedly retrieved his phone from his new jacket pocket, dialed Mycroft, and lifted his mobile to his ear. Best to get it over with, he thought, before he was in the Underground again and on his way to the Tower of London.

            “Ah, John,” he heard from the other end of the line. “I was wondering when you’d call. I see you’ve used the card I gave you.”

“So what’s his number, then?” John walked briskly toward the nearest station once more, trying to ignore the idea that Mycroft had probably known of John’s purchase within minutes of his making it.

            “Direct as always. He is currently at…” John pulled out his notebook, pen poised and ready. “Oh seven four one six, nine three one two two oh.”

            “Got it,” said John. “Ta.”

            “Do be cautious, John. Don’t do anything terribly…destructive.”

            John sighed and hung up. If this went the way he wanted it, he’d be doing something _very_ destructive soon enough.

 

 

 

           Some half-hour later, John squared his shoulders and sat on a bench with a good view of the area surrounding the Tower of London. Now it was all a matter of finding Jim, of figuring out where he’d come from. John scanned the area. He obviously went _into_ the Tower, presumably in the conventional way, since his presence and appearance didn’t attract any attention up until the whole _stealing the Crown Jewels_ bit. Of course he could have snuck in, but why bother? That was the entire point of what he did, wasn’t it? To prove the he could waltz about and do whatever he pleased, wherever he pleased. And if he came in the conventional way, that narrowed things down quite a lot.

            Waiting at the entrance, of course, and seeing where Jim had come from would be one way of going about it, John thought, except that he wouldn’t be able to trace the man back very far, and why bother finding where Jim was before getting to the Tower to avoid all the crowds if one could only trace him back to a still-crowded area?

            Sherlock, of course, would make some deductions.

            First, there was the question of whether Moriarty took his own car, like before when he left the pool, or took a bus, or the Tube, or walked from god-knows-where.

            John strode north back toward the Tower Hill station for the Tube; at the very least, he could hit two birds with one stone there, since there were several nearby bus stops he could scope out at the same time. _If he didn’t take the bus or the Tube, I can at least find out where he walked from_.

            When he got to the nearest bus stop he had a nice view of both the Tube station and the other stops, and so John leaned casually against a little cement fence outlining some gardens. The break-in would be reported in about an hour, hour and a half, which either meant that Jim would arrive soon and take his time, or John would be waiting for a while.

            He didn’t have to wait long. Jim came strolling from Byward, and John captured what small amount of information was available to him from where he was. _South side of the street, so he took the southern side of the fork just before._ That side was closer to the Tower, but he would have to cross to John’s side to get to the little pedestrian underpass from the Tube station to the Tower; why go to the other side of the street only to cross again?

            That was a start, at least; John could wait some distance up the street for Jim there, discreetly searching for him from the window of some shop or restaurant. At this thought, he followed the path that would inevitably be Jim’s— _was_ inevitably Jim’s, keeping an eye out for a good place to put himself. _A corner_ , he decided. _That would be best._ He could keep an eye out from multiple directions that way. _Something with seats near the windows, or some sort of display I can pretend to be looking around for a while._

            He evaluated each shop he passed as he followed Lower Thames Street. _Private building; no windows facing the right way; rubbish view of the other side of the sidewalk._ Finally, he came upon an intersection with a smaller street, and some sort of tucked-away café whose façade promised little more than someplace reasonably quiet to eat. It was just far enough from the hullabaloo of the Tower of London that the crowds were considerably thinner and surveillance was markedly decreased; but close enough to where he’d seen Jim that there was a very good chance the man would pass this spot. It would be perfect.

            Or at least, John hoped so. Then again: he’d seen Jim walking along the street after passing here. Was it because he hadn’t yet decided to wait here for Jim, or because he’d tried to catch his attention, to distract him, to pull him away, but failed? John hoped for the former. Or maybe, he’d come here but then get a better idea to wait someplace else. John nodded to himself. If something truly awful had happened, he would have run across himself sprawled unconscious somewhere, or he would have run after himself to warn himself not to do it, wouldn’t he have?  He—him from the future—wasn’t in the café any longer, it appeared, but that only made sense: if Moriarty wasn’t here, there was no reason John should be. Heartened, he continued casually past the café to loop back around to the station and get back to his machine.

 

 

 

            John removed his mobile from his pocket, keeping steady eyes on the street outside of the café he’d chosen. _Nothing worth changing my mind on this location so far_ , he thought, turning the mobile in his hands and then entering Moriarty’s number jus so that it would be ready. He was due past at any minute. John pulled his hat down slightly and stared off to the west, squinting as he glimpsed a recognizable gait from a figure in the distance.

Sure enough, it was Jim approaching at a casual stroll from somewhere down the street, apparently having a conversation with the man beside him, who John would bet money was military. Doubtless he was one of Moriarty’s men—a gunman, probably.

John pressed _call_ and raised the phone to his ear. By the way Jim sighed and rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket, John was sure he’d heard his mobile.

He still swallowed back a gasp when the ringing on the other line stopped and a familiar voice curled around and into his ear, tinny and ingratiating. However expected it was, it instigated shudders—of anger, or honest-to-god fear, or both. “Hello, this is Jim. May I ask who’s calling?”

            John licked his lips, swallowing down another shudder at the name—so simple, so _human_ an introduction for someone so very _not_ human. Was this how he answered the phone for his clients? Maybe not. Maybe that was just how Moriarty answered for numbers he didn’t recognize.

           He took in a slow breath. John stood and drifted toward the door of the café, ready to wander out and intercept Moriarty and do whatever it took to wrangle him into an alley. He itched at his back where his gun was tucked into his trousers; he could do it at gunpoint if he had to, could hide the thing beneath his jacket. John coughed, and then cleared his throat.

           “I…” he started to say, or thought he started to say, but he couldn’t be sure as a sudden _pop_ from the mobile almost caused him to drop it, and the subsequent crackling from the receiver gave him pause. He tried again. “I want you to stop where you are and approach the café door to your right,” he said.

            From the other line, there was a mocking voice singing, “‘Oh, hello, sorry I sat my fat arse on my phone.’” Jim sighed. “Idiot.” He looked to the man beside him and shook his head, shrugging.

            “I have a gun trained on you,” John lied quietly into the phone. “Go into the café.”

            “What do you think,” said Jim, his voice now slightly muffled as he addressed his companion, “want to look up who it was and make his life a pretty little slice of hell for being so impolite?”

            “Boss,” said the more distant voice of the other man, warning and exasperated.

            “Oh, right,” said Jim, his eye-rolling almost audible even if John hadn’t been able to see it, “I guess we’ve got a _thing_ today. Speaking of,” John could see Jim look at an imaginary watch on his wrist, “don’t you have someplace nice and tall and interesting to be?”

            “Yessir.”

He returned his attention to his mobile as he waved the other man off. “Moron still hasn’t realized he’s called me,” he muttered, apparently to himself as the other man turned back from the way he’d come and rounded a corner.

            “The fuck I have,” said John into the phone, but Jim appeared not to hear it, simply hung up. John shook his head and pulled the mobile away from his ear, and realized why he’d had such rubbish luck: the intense heat and faint singe-marks around the receiver meant it had probably blown. John sniffed at it and his nose was filled with the acrid scent of ozone. _Yes: definitely blown._ So Jim really _hadn’t_ been able to hear him.

He could _text_ , though, still, couldn’t he? John pushed his phone open to access the keypad and started typing Jim’s number in the text field.

            Except—the number didn’t show up. He pressed a few more keys—the entire keyboard seemed to be nonoperational. He’d have to use the screen, or—

            John looked up out the window. _Ah, fuck,_ he thought, feeling panic rising in his throat as the traffic signal outside changed. Moriarty started across among the small crowd of other people, many of whom were also probably headed for the Tower of London, not knowing that they were walking beside a criminal, a murderer, the most dangerous man in London; not knowing, to be sure, that in just a few short months they will believe that that man is Richard Brook, that Sherlock was a fake, that—

            John stuffed his mobile into his pocket, hauled the café door open, and sprinted out. If he couldn’t shoot Moriarty and if he couldn’t call Moriarty to capture his attention then perhaps he could beat him down in a fistfight. Hell, John thought, if Jim were to recognize him and see that he’s John and _know_ he’s not the John of right-now, then so be it, so _fucking_ be it, because he was going to kill Jim anyway, and what a dead man knows can’t hurt anybody.

            _We both know that’s not quite true._

John shook his head and dashed out after the crowd, and then shuffled in among them.

Anyway, if Jim _did_ recognize him, if Jim _did_ see him and somehow still got away, that would certainly set things on a different track. And a different track meant John would have the advantage, for once, didn’t it? He could push the course of events in his favor instead of them relentlessly sticking to what they had been. A different track meant something _other_ than Sherlock jumping, and _that_ was what mattered.

He stretched his fingers out so that he could wrap them around Jim’s collar, could pull him back, could yank him over to the side and draw his gun beneath his jacket and let Jim feel the cold press of metal against his back and walk with John’s arm slung around his shoulder around the corner, two streets down, to a place John knew had no cameras.

            But when his fingers stretched out and grasped they caught thin air, and some arsehole behind him shoved him forward, and he stumbled from the island in the center of the street, albeit just as the signal changed to _walk_ anyway. John stood and started to turn back to the group of pedestrians, back to Moriarty, with shoulders half-hunched and eyes full of menace. If this was when he was going to be looking James Moriarty in the eye then so be it; he braced himself to be face to face with the man, from beneath the cover of his hat, as he turned and—

            And shuddered and stuttered and ducked quickly as fire burned up his throat and boiled his innards and as the flickering heat of the air whorled around his inner ear.

            From his hunched position he retched, and then he stumbled and fell against the street as the crowds ambled past him.

           Jim wandered by among them, texting away on his mobile.

           John knelt on the street, gasping for breath for several seconds before trying to stand again on shaky knees. He reeled forward but then looked back over his shoulder to the crowd that had passed him, to the small and unassuming form of Jim as he reached the other side of the street. John started to turn and heard a gasp from someone nearby, and then saw why.

           He saw a bus rocketing straight toward him.

           John wobbled in resonance with the squealing of the bus’ brakes at it tried to screech to a halt—but it would definitely, _definitely_ be too little, too late, and— _shit—_

           John dove for the island in the street from which he’d come.

            The bus squealed almost to a stop with its center just where John had been, before picking up speed again and continuing on its way as John knelt on the island and panted out relief.

            He brought himself back up on still-quivering knees, and stared with dismay as Jim turned from this street onto an even busier one, toward more tourists, more cameras, more security. John pulled his hat tightly over his head and reigned in frustrated little gasps of breaths made unsteady by adrenaline, and turned and waited for the signal to cross back from whence he came, staring at the sizzled speaker of his phone for something to do while he waited.

            There was something that he was going about all wrong; that’s why this wasn’t working out. He had to play games with time. That was Andrew’s mistake. He only tried the one time, over and over again; the one method. What if Andrew had gone back farther, what if he had prevented his wife from buying that car, from working that shift, from getting that job?

            The problem was that John had waited for a time when Moriarty was too implicated in their lives, maybe. Too many knots for time to untangle, too many stories for it to rewrite and patch up and still be able to explain why John got to where he did. Maybe it was about starting over. Redoing it. Fixing it _completely_. And maybe that would deprive them of that one moment, of Sherlock’s almost-confession after they got back from the pool, if indeed that was what it was, John thought—but at least if he could get Jim gone, there would be more time, more moments for almost-confessions. Maybe they would still go to Baskerville and maybe there, in the quiet of the night while John still wondered if each small stirring sound was a stake-out outside the inn, if the little scrapes were steps of the enemy, if faint clicks were cocked guns, maybe he would roll out of bed smoothly and to the floor, ducking, just to be safe, and crawl over to Sherlock’s bed, and reach for Sherlock’s hand, and let Sherlock pull him in.

            “They’ve got us cornered,” he’d whisper urgently to Sherlock, and Sherlock would know, would know how bad an idea it was to have tried drugging John like that, and would hear John’s panicked breaths and pull him up into his bed. And John, John would curl straight into Sherlock, and use him like a shield against all the imagined sounds, and Sherlock would understand and cup his palms over John’s ears. John would say, “Say something to me,” in need of a distraction.

            And Sherlock would lean in, his breath dancing across John’s ear, every ounce of it caught by his cupped hand and reflected back in. Sherlock would be very quiet for minutes, just breathing, or maybe muttering soft assurances that if something were awry, _he_ , of course, would know, so John needn’t worry. After a while, after John might or might not have drifted off to sleep—he won’t have—Sherlock would whisper, “John? I wanted to…say…”

            John crossed the street with steps gaining surety, with the sickness and dizziness in his stomach fading and leaving only memories of how immensely dire the moment had been, as if all of John’s body had been ready to up and leave his skin and brain to rot in the street, to flee for its own safety.

            If he could go back to a time when it would be easy to disentangle himself and Sherlock from Moriarty, perhaps it would be easier. There would be no worry of Moriarty recognizing John, of knowing he shouldn’t be there.

            Sometime, John thought, like just before Jim from IT came in the door and, unbeknownst to them at the time, turned the world upside-down.

            He could go into the hospital building and find Jim before Jim found them, could corner him on a stairwell or on the lift or in some side-room and deal with him there, however he had to, and flee before anyone knew.

            That would be a mystery Sherlock wouldn’t solve, not until John came back from time-traveling. And perhaps Sherlock would obsess over it a bit; or perhaps not. He’d look into Jim’s belongings and somehow find out who he really was, that he was the Moriarty who’d sent the cabbie, and he’d find Moriarty’s web and he and John would pick it apart piece by piece, and both live to be at least a little older.

            Or maybe Jim would just go missing. If John found himself with such an opportunity—well. He’d take advantage of it.

            So it would be back again to not so long before where he’d just come from, John thought, climbing onto a train in the Tower Hill station. Perhaps he’d have a bit of a rest, first, before the time-travel and dizziness completely drained him. He almost drifted off in the train just thinking about it.

            _Soon, Sherlock,_ he thought, looking behind closed eyelids to the empty seat beside him, as if he expected to find Sherlock there. _I’ll sort this out soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here](http://toasterfish.tumblr.com/post/46318022710/basically-im-getting-a-little-too-into-the-more) are some things that I'm going to have with me while I'm dressed as Moebius!John at 221BCon. If you're going, I fully expect you to request to dig through John's wallet/pockets. I made fake receipts and I made notes from Mummy Holmes and Sherlock and basically everything that I could think of from the story. XD
> 
> And yes, I have actually had an apple core sitting on my desk for the past month. It is significantly less gross than I thought it would be.


	15. Cosmic Strings Like Rubber Bands (IV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John glanced over the railing.
> 
>  _No fucking way_ , he thought, seizing up only for a split-second as he thought he saw Moriarty, somehow, through some stupid luck, linger just a flight below to speak to a passing lab tech. Of course, that didn’t make any sense, because—
> 
> John listed to the side, his hip bumping the railing, and felt a sizzling up his spine.
> 
>  _Jump_ , buzzed his ears. He felt a burning fizz in his lungs kill all the air within them and he sucked in a deep and shaking breath.
> 
> And suddenly his center of mass was five feet away, and suddenly he was falling, and suddenly it occurred to John that he had jumped, and he flung an arm out to try to catch the railing he’d fallen over, the wall, anything to slow him down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of Part III. The next chapter will be another interlude, and I'll be posting it in less than a week to make sure that any of you who are going to come find me at 221BCon will have a chance to read it beforehand. Anyone have a preference for what day? Like "if you don't post it before ____ I won't see it before the con"? I was thinking Monday or Tuesday, but it's actually already written, so if that's too late for some reason, let me know.
> 
> I anticipate that parts IV and V will both about the same length as or shorter than this one. And bear in mind that in keeping with that this story reflects the S2 themes of love, fear, and death, and we've done love and this is the end of fear...death is next. *ulp*
> 
> As ever, a thousand thanks to [Morwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) for beta-ing and helping me out so much in general. 
> 
> (PS: To those of you reading A Conductor of Lightning: I haven't actually forgotten about it, I've just been so busy doing this that that one's gone on the backburner. After 221BCon I expect it will be back with a vengeance! A dark, BAMFy-John vengeance.)

            John folded up his disguise clothes and left them in the gazebo with a note. _Feel free to bin this,_ it said. Nice as it was to have worn a fresh change of clothes, where he was going it would be best to be seen in something more his usual. After all, if he passed someone in the hallway at St. Bart’s, where he’d be looking for Jim, and then they saw him in the lab later, it probably wouldn’t strike them as all that odd. He was wearing his usual jacket; they wouldn’t notice the difference besides that, especially not if he kept it buttoned up. No one but Sherlock would, anyway; but Sherlock would probably deduce that John was somehow different through six other, less obvious things first, if he were to catch a glimpse. John would just have to make sure _that_ didn’t happen.

            He’d considered bringing the clothes along with him, but room on the time machine was limited as it was, and every piece of science fiction he’d ever read or watched warned that bad things would probably happen if he traveled with a loose pair of trousers sitting about. They’d wind up outside the machine, somehow, and against all odds wind up in the wrong hands in a time in which they didn’t belong, and slowly shift the universe around first by milliseconds and millimeters and then days and miles. Or, they’d fly off midway between _now_ and _then_ , and hit some of the buttons, or some other ridiculous and unpredictable thing, and John would get stranded in prehistoric times, or in the distant future, or six galaxies away and gasping for air, or in a strange alternate universe where Sherlock never existed in the first place.

            It was a shame; he’d have liked to keep the hat, just so that he could give it to Sherlock later and set him off on some tirade about it. He would be so _angry_ that it was a deerstalker, John thought, but then so _attached_ because it would be a well-time-traveled hat, and therefore probably very interesting to study. Or at least it might be suitable to be set upon the skull on the mantelpiece for some slight comedic value, since it would be just interesting enough not to throw away.

            John climbed into the machine and set it back to March 29 of the previous year. It figured that he’d be going back to just before where he’d come from. But how the hell was he to have known that it would be so bloody difficult to kill Moriarty? At least earlier in the past he probably had a greater chance, didn’t he? It was worth a shot, at least, because he was running out of options.

           

 

 

            He arrived at the hospital just long enough after he and Sherlock had originally gone in that no one who was there the first time would still be around—at least, probably not anyone who’d be paying attention to the door both times.

            Since Jim had been playing at being “Jim from IT,” John thought, he probably would have gone at least to the trouble of appearing to work in IT. Molly wasn’t stupid; she’d figure out soon enough if Jim was lying about his job. Maybe, John thought, Jim had managed to hack the St. Bart’s computer system just like he’d gotten into the security at the bloody bank and the prison a year from now, and hired himself temporarily.

            In that case, it would be a matter of finding the IT department. It hadn’t ever really been something he’d had to know before. He glanced around. No maps nearby—well, of course not. Everyone here either knew where they were going, or would be filtering in to go visit someone, where there would be plenty of signs or people pointing them to the right place.

            He started with the top floor, cautiously peering about before he turned corners to make sure that he neither ran into Jim by accident, nor wound up passing somebody who knew him. _It would be my luck I’d run into Mike again,_ he thought. Mike would be well-meaning and try to talk him into lunch and John would have to work his way out of that one without resorting to excuses like _Oh, I’m helping Sherlock with a case right now, I’d better get back to the lab before he starts dribbling acid on the police evidence,_ because then Mike might want to stop and say hello, and wouldn’t _that_ be the stupidest way to end everything?

            But there was no IT department to be found there, and no Jim. John walked briskly toward the stairs. He only had so long before Jim would show up and slip Sherlock his phone number. They’d inspected those shoes for a while, but…searching the entire hospital would probably take longer. John supposed he could always come back even earlier some other time, wander around a bit and then hide out, pretending he’d gone home, only to return later, and hope that no one made any comments to that John about having seen him earlier.

            He’d have to look around the next floor a bit more expeditiously. Of course, he should probably actually make sure that he wasn’t going to run into Moriarty on the stairwell, either.

            John glanced over the railing.

            _No fucking way_ , he thought, seizing up only for a split-second as he thought he saw Moriarty, somehow, through some stupid luck, linger just a flight below to speak to a passing lab tech. Of course, that didn’t make any sense, because—

            John listed to the side, his hip bumping the railing, and felt a sizzling up his spine.

            _Jump_ , buzzed his ears. He felt a burning fizz in his lungs kill all the air within them and he sucked in a deep and shaking breath.

            He shifted his weight away from the rail but felt his innards grow heavy as if in protest, as if summoning from some well of inertia hidden far away from any moments other than almost-dying, other than diving away from gunshots or running across the sand through the rumbling shaking of explosions.

           John took another shuddering breath and realized that this is what it felt like, to be overloaded with adrenaline; he’d reached some sort of limit. He started to hold his breath but puffed it out in shock when his mind urged, _It’s him,_ and, _jump!_

            He looked down over the rail to see, because _hell,_ if it really _was_ Moriarty—

           And suddenly his center of mass was five feet away, and suddenly he was falling, and suddenly it occurred to John that he had jumped, and he flung an arm out to try to catch the railing he’d fallen over, the wall, anything to slow him down. As he plummeted from the top of that flight of stairs down to the bottom steps of the next floor, he angled his shoulder to catch himself—but his head smacked into the step above the one his shoulder hit half a second later,and he felt the sharp burst of its corner against his skull. He gasped in tight breaths to cling onto the brightness in his field of vision that was being quickly swallowed up in the silence. His gasps grew thinner, and thinner, and a blanket of dark swiftly covered him.

 

 

 

            And then he woke up.

            “Sir!” someone was leaning over him.

            He felt the prodding of stairs’ corners against his back and legs. _Oh, god._

            “Are you all right?”

            “Fine,” he mumbled. Fine enough, anyway. It was important, John was sure, that he be fine. Bad things would happen if he wasn’t fine, but fuck if he could remember just now. He had something he had to do and he had to stand up to do it. He struggled to do so, and the person—female, John concluded dazedly; nurse; mid thirties?—gently urged him back down.

            “What is your name?”

            “John,” he groaned.

            “Okay, John. Do you know where you are?”

            That one was easy. “Hospital.” He looked around. “Saint Bart’s.”

            “Good. Do you remember the current year?”

            _Ah, fuck._ He had been in a lot of years lately.

           Being at St. Bart’s narrowed it down a bit, at least. “Two thousand eleven?” At the slight knit of her brow, he tried again. “Ah, right—uh—” Definitely more recent than when John had been here for training rotations, probably not 2012 because not that many months had happened there yet, probably not before he met Sherlock, because prior to that he hadn’t been here much since getting his degree, and he hadn’t come here to find Sherlock, had he? “Ten. Sorry. Uh. Flustered.”

            She gave him a dubious stare.

            “I’m all right. Really.”

            “And you remember what happened to you?”

            John glanced up and swallowed. “I, uh—I tripped and lost my balance and fell over the railing practically up at the next floor.”

            “That’s a pretty nasty fall.”

            “Well, I caught myself pretty well,” he assured her, “except these sodding pointy things.” John tapped at the corner of the one nearest his hand to demonstrate his point. “Stairs,” he specified at her raised eyebrow. “I haven’t forgotten what they are. Just…being dramatic.”

            “Right,” she sighed.

            “Really. I’m a doctor. I think I’d know if there was something wrong.”

            “You work here?”

            “No,” he said, “just visiting.”

            “You know that you’re in completely the wrong part of the building for visitors?”

            “Oh, I’m,” John said. “Uh. Looking for IT. Got a friend there named Jim. Do you know him?”

            She shook her head. “Sorry. But you were at least headed the right way. Bottom floor, and if you go down from this staircase, take a right first thing you can and it’s the second door along the left side.”

            “Oh,” John said, sitting up. “Ta.”

            “If something seems even slightly off, you get help. I know you doctor sorts are stubborn, but don’t be an idiot.”

            “Right.” John brought himself to his feet, only shaking slightly. Still the adrenaline, he supposed.

            “Take it slow.”

            “Will do.”

            And he was taking careful steps down while she gave him a concerned look and slowly ascended.

            At least now he knew where to find the IT department—and, hopefully, Moriarty. John pulled his mobile from his pocket. He’d lost a few minutes while unconscious—but, thank god, just a few. He supposed if he’d been out much longer, somebody would have carted him off to a room to monitor him. _See_ , he thought, _at least you aren’t having_ completely _rubbish luck today._

            He made his way to the room described on slowly steadying legs and knocked before nudging the door open and peeking his head in, bobbing it up and down for a moment in an attempt to see past the stacks of boxes and file cabinets and machinery to see if there was anyone in. He could discern that a couple of blokes were hanging around in back, their desks wedged between sets of file cabinets. Those could just as easily contain government secrets or building diagrams (or print-outs of code that looked perfectly normal but was really the password to every bank account and military base and prison cell and security desk in the world, John thought) as they could contain dull records of software upgrades that no one would ever look at anyway, that no one would fuss about if Jim was the only one who had the key.

           But there was no sign of Moriarty here right now. “Anyone seen, uh, Jim?” John asked.

            “Went up to the cafeteria,” said one of the two men, not glancing up from his computer screen. “Lunch with his girlfriend or something.”

            “Oh. Ta.”

            So John was up the stairs again.

            If Jim was with Molly, of course, that would make things difficult. John stayed carefully toward the walls as he climbed the stairs, debating whether he ought to have just taken the lift instead, just to be safe.

           If Molly was with Moriarty, John would probably have a difficult time finding a moment where Jim was alone. He’d followed Molly into the lab right after she herself had come in, so he’d been with her then. Doubtful they’d split up between his going up to meet her to lunch and their going to the lab in some half-hour’s time.

            _And if I do find him? Is something going to make me do something bloody stupid like dive over railings?_ He’d had next to no control over himself, had mentally blanked out for entire seconds while his impulses hijacked his body and drove him over last time. What he was doing was, apparently, dangerous—and not in a fun way. Heavy weights like stones scraped together in John’s gut and it felt a bit like carrying cancer or being converted to a kamikaze pilot from the inside out. It was dangerous like dying, instead of his usual dangerous, dangerous like being so very _alive_.

            The simple fact of it was, John thought, that at any moment it might happen again. Probably the moment he found Moriarty, since that was when he seemed to have such awful luck.

            _It’ll be worth it, though_ , _if I can finally get him._ If his insides decided they wanted to be five feet over and a floor or two down again, all John really needed was the presence of mind to grab onto Jim and bring him along with him.

            When John arrived at the cafeteria, he did see Jim—but not Molly. He was sitting at a table, tapping away at his mobile and tugging up his bloody _oh well that brand obviously means he’s gay_ pants so that they remained visible above his trousers. Before John could begin to wonder whether he ought to try to confront Jim before Molly showed, Jim got up and meandered toward the other side of the cafeteria.

            _The other doors,_ John thought. He walked back out of the cafeteria the way he came in, as briskly as he could without drawing attention. He could find the hallway that Jim would enter if he exited through the other set of doors—which he had looked to be preparing to do. It would be a right, left, and a right, and that would connect up with the longer hallway from the other side of the cafeteria, and Jim would _have_ to be walking past there, unless he was taking the lift—no, that was in the hallway that led up to that one, so he’d run into John in that case too.

            John nodded at some other tech who he was fairly certain he’d had a conversation with once as he kept walking, making the first right and keeping a sharp eye out. If he didn’t intercept Jim in time here, he’d have to just start searching down hallways, and the last thing he wanted to be was unprepared. He paused for a moment as a small crowd of students shuffled by and then darted down the left hall. If Jim got to this point before John, he could’ve actually turned and gone another way entirely, but provided he was continuing on at the saunter at which he’d been leaving the cafeteria…

            He made his last turn to the right and could see at the end of this hallway the spot where Jim would _have_ to pass to come by. He’d come through that hallway and probably go all the way to the end of it and take one flight of stairs up, and find Molly there in the morgue. John restrained himself from outright sprinting to the end of the corridor, from drawing his gun or maybe just preparing to grab Jim in a nasty arm lock and drag him over to the next open room and chuck him out the window.

            John approached the corner and peeked around it cautiously, not ready to give away his position.

            _Yes,_ he thought to himself, as Jim approached with still some sixty or seventy feet to go, texting away. John could wait pinned here against this wall, take Jim by—

            He coughed.

            He coughed, and coughed again, and felt his lungs battle his diaphragm over whether he ought to be able to replace the air that rushed out of him, and turned away from the hallway to cough harder until his coughs became little wheezes. He held his hand fast to his mouth because dammit, maybe that wasn’t the done thing at a hospital but _fuck_ if he’d ever had worse timing and the health of everyone who touched the same door handle as him wasn’t precisely priority one right this sodding instant.

            When the fit seemed to abate John wiped the saliva that had flung itself out during his fit off of his face and then pulled his hand back to wipe the spittle on his trousers.

            But it wasn’t spittle.

            _Oh, god_.

            It was blood.

            And not a small amount of it, either.

            John felt another coughing fit coming on as his lungs wheezed to replace the air he’d missed out on during his last fit, and wiped his hand on the inside of his jacket in the hopes of getting rid of as much as the blood as possible.

            Because he was in a hospital.

            _Fuck._

            His stomach roiled and threatened to empty its contents alongside the blood the next time around, and John swayed before catching himself against the wall.

            He peeked around the corner once more. Thirty, forty feet. As John considered simply stepping out and rushing Jim before his luck got any worse, his knees threatened to give out, and he felt his heart pound with frightening irregularity and his brow grow sweaty. His chest heaved heavier. He stumbled backward, and, _Jesus, I cannot have a heart attack in a bloody hospital,_ and _if they see me coughing up blood I’m fucked,_ and leaned back against the doors to the lift before whipping around and jamming his thumb against the down button. He could hear Jim’s light steps moving closer in the quiet of the rest of the hallway.

            _No, no, can’t down and to the entry,_ John thought. _It’s a long way out and if I have another fit they’ll have a field day._ What if he’d been near infants, or near other sensitive patients? Coughing up blood was never good. They’d check the cameras, see where he’d been. They might lock down the entire wing of the hospital before John could escape. They’d check where he’d been and they’d see him on two different cameras and this would all be for fucking nothing.

            Just as the light for the lift lit, Jim shuffled quickly past the intersection of the hallways, keeping to the wall at the far side and now very pointedly looking at his mobile, as if he feared he might be subject to the moral responsibility that accompanied making eye contact with the sick if he so much as glanced in the direction of whoever was hacking up a lung. “Do us all a favor and just go to the morgue now,” Jim said with a sneer as he passed, and then, as he continued down the hall, called out, “Downstairs, first left.”

           The lift doors opened. John stumbled in.

 _Empty,_ he thought, _thank god._ He urgently pressed one button to close the doors and then leaned into the button of the highest floor available, whatever the hell it was, because he should know, because he’d been here quite a lot, but the numbers were a bit too fuzzy to discern. Top floor, that was…

            _The roof,_ he thought. _Yes. I’ll hide out up there until this goes away, and until Sherlock and I have left._ If anyone wondered why he was back, he’d just say he forgot his phone, or Sherlock left his riding crop again or something, and deal with the funny looks.

            John’s core seized up and he curled against the wall to cough again, and was left with the eerily warm prickling of a drop of blood sliding out of the corner of his mouth before he could wipe it away. Jesus _Christ_ , it was as if his guts were dissolving in protest of the mere idea of his finding and killing Moriarty.

            Maybe they were.

            Through some mad fluke, or maybe because he was already more than halfway up anyway and the place hadn’t been particularly bustling, no one else needed on the lift as John ascended.

            The doors finally slid open, and John stepped out into the sunlight, shielded only slightly by the overhang of the small structure that housed the lift.

            He was on the roof.

            John walked around to the side wall of the shed and leaned against it, sliding down until he sat.

            _This is it,_ he thought. _This is where it happened._

He didn’t dare go nearer the edge. He might be possessed to jump again.

            “I’m not going to be able to kill him, am I?” he muttered to himself, half hoping to hear reassurances or at least some snapping remark from an imagined presence sitting beside him, or maybe pacing around—no. No, definitely sitting, planted firmly on the surface of the roof, right beside John, where John could keep him from doing anything stupid.

            But there was no answer. He was alone.

            There was, of course, _an_ answer.

            That answer was for John to be on the roof beside Sherlock, where he could keep him from doing anything stupid.

            That was, as far as John could see it, the only remaining option. If he couldn’t kill Jim, maybe it was a matter of not being able to kill someone in the past. Maybe it was all about saving Sherlock.

            _Andrew couldn’t save his wife._

 _Andrew didn’t try hard enough_.

            And it had to be right then, right there. Maybe John would make a difference after all—maybe that phone call would go differently without him being up here. Maybe things would play out just as before except that Sherlock would call John from the rooftop and say something else, like, “Come up here, John.”

            John, of course, not knowing what was going on, would ask, “Why?” Sherlock would be silent, standing on the edge like that, dramatic, while John would run into the building and fly up the stairs with his phone still to his ear. “What is it, Sherlock?” John would ask more urgently. Half his mind would be considering the possibility of the impossible—of Sherlock doing something stupid, jumping, slipping, _god_. Half his mind, the half he wanted to believe, would be bracing him for the sight of twelve extremely interesting corpses all lined up and Sherlock waiting with a bottle of lysergic acid diethylamide in solution all ready to pour on them.

           John would have to check for symptoms to make sure Sherlock hadn’t used any of the LSD even _less_ scientifically and was _that_ why he dawdled about on the edge like that? He would have to lean in close to check Sherlock’s pupils. He’d slowly, carefully raise his fingers to Sherlock’s jaw to take his pulse, and wave one hand in front of Sherlock’s eyes to track his movements before lifting it to his forehead to get a feel for his temperature. “Are you thirsty?” John would ask. Sherlock would shake his head. John would pry his lips open to check anyway. “Increased salivation,” John would note, and he wouldn’t be able to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

            “I’m not high,” Sherlock would say. He would sound very sober. He would lick his lips once John pulled his fingers away from them. Sherlock would throw the bottle off to the side, and it would burst and its contents degrade, and while John’s eyes were still following the liquid splatter Sherlock would take John’s chin between his fingers. His voice would lower to a whisper. “John, I…”

            Maybe Sherlock’s call to John would change and John would come up and find Moriarty dead at Sherlock’s feet.

            Maybe Sherlock’s call wouldn’t change at all.

            And in case it didn’t, John had to be here.

            If he was lucky, he could talk Sherlock out of it. Maybe he could at least grab Sherlock. Maybe if he burst into a coughing fit and his innards started deteriorating like LSD in sunlight he could at least grab Sherlock and throw his weight backwards and tip them back onto the roof, and Sherlock would get it through his bloody skull that _somebody_ cared.

            Maybe Sherlock jumped because of something else. Maybe it was Jim, making him do it. It was like the cabbie all over again, Sherlock run off to play games except that this time John didn’t have the option of a shot through an impossible distance to pop Jim in the head or the heart or wherever he could hit him.

            If it was—if Moriarty was the one who made Sherlock do it—then John might not be able to kill him. He tilted his head back, taking deeper breaths as his body slowed and calmed, and then sped again at the thought. God knew he’d had rubbish luck up to this point. But he could _try_. Or maybe Sherlock, who would, at least, belong to the correct time, could do it.

            Maybe the problem wasn’t killing Moriarty at all. Maybe the problem was tricking time, tricking the universe, into thinking the exact same thing as was going to happen anyway, had happened. Maybe John could kill Moriarty if he and Sherlock could work out a way to make it _look_ like Sherlock jumped to his death, and then Sherlock would be wheeled off into St. Bart’s where John would be waiting for him, and they would go back to the flat and tell John, the other John, that all was well. Or Sherlock would do that, and John would go home, and saving Sherlock here meant saving Sherlock there, right?

            Whatever exactly it would take—whatever exactly John could do, whatever rules he was allowed to break, or quite possibly whatever rules would kill him while he saved Sherlock’s life—whatever it was, exactly, he would do it. He prepared to do anything to make sure Sherlock lived.

            _And what if you can’t?_

John buried his face in his hands.

            It was a possibility he had to consider. Things hadn’t exactly been going favorably for him. He might not make it up there—what if whatever it was that had made him start coughing up blood this time acted up again, or what if he was compelled again to make some stupid move, to leap off the stairs or in front of a car before he even arrived at St. Bart’s? He could keel over before he even made it a single floor up.

            Or, if John did arrive here in more or less one piece, what if he couldn’t save Sherlock? Maybe Moriarty would be here, and kill John the moment he showed up, and still make Sherlock jump. Or John could show up just too late. Maybe he would reach the roof only to see one last flap of a coat. John curled into himself and locked his jaw shut as he retched at the thought.

Without a better idea of what had actually _happened_ up here, John could think of a thousand ways for things to go wrong. What else could he do but hope? Those were his options: hope, or give up.

            _Andrew gave up_. Maybe he eventually got to this point. Had he pushed to break some part of the car and wound up collapsed and coughing up blood? Had he tried to stop her from leaving the house only to be knocked unconscious by a toppling grandfather clock? _I was so sure,_ he thought, _that he just wasn’t persistent enough._ But maybe the apparent inflexibility of events had gotten to him too, and that was why he gave up.

            “I won’t, Sherlock,” John muttered. “I won’t give up on you.”

            There was no answer.

            Andrew had given up—so much that he didn’t want to return to Brian, to the caring friend who went to all the trouble of seeking out someone who just might take his case seriously, who fidgeted and appeared to be in a constant state of seconds from sniffling back tears for the first and last several minutes in which he spoke to John. Andrew had a friend who really believed that he’d used a time-machine, that it really wasn’t just some smoke-and-mirrors method of escape, or, or worse. But Brian wasn’t enough. Andrew didn’t want to return.

            But Andrew _could’ve_ kept going to the past to see his wife, couldn’t he have? Unless, of course, through the same twists and turns, he could never talk to her again; time seemed fickle about such things. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all; maybe he could’ve done, but it was all a matter of knowing that no matter what, he would still lose her. No matter what, John thought, Andrew could never have the same relationship with his wife as they’d had at the point where they left off. The time when _he_ had first met Sherlock was fantastic, John thought, but would he ever like it as much if he knew that it wouldn’t lead to anything farther, knowing that its end would be violent and bloody and baffling and immutable and not old age or a bullet wound on the case or a poisonous explosion in the kitchen, side by side with Sherlock, but a stark and senseless suicide? For how many days or weeks or months or years could he follow Sherlock-from-the-past around from behind shrubberies, how many back-to-back restaurant conversations could he have with him, knowing how it would end, before he would break down and fall on his knees and start pleading, or possibly, upon attempting to do so, bleeding out at his blatant violation of the way things were meant to be?

            And if John couldn’t save Sherlock the way Andrew couldn’t save his wife, and if he didn’t die trying, then what?

            Then he would be alone.

            And well and truly, this time, he suspected, without little ghosts of Sherlock following him about, muttering over his shoulder, breathing in his ear. Sherlock-over-his-shoulder had gone missing lately, had been eerily silent, and John suspected, and John _knew,_ that it had something to do with what he was doing, with trying to kill Jim and failing, with heaving up blood, with the dwindling and dying chances of changing anything. It had something to do with John knowing, with every muscle and bone and vessel in his body, that if Sherlock died again he was dead for good. It had something to do with knowing that it wasn’t a fluke or a slipped step or a near thing, with knowing that whatever sick and twisted games destiny played it meant and would fight for Sherlock to die. It had something to do with knowing that if it happened again, it was because it was always going to happen, and if it happened again, it had happened for good.

            John shivered. If it happened again—if it happened again like before, that was it, wasn’t it? Sherlock would no longer loom at his back or whisper in his ear. Chills would no longer run up his spine because he’d swear he’d heard a voice; they would run up his spine because the sound was just the wind, and the wind was cold. If he grew belladonna on the windowsill and steeped it, would he get it back, the tingle of Sherlock’s presence nearby? Would he _ever_ get it back? Sherlock-over-his-shoulder had stopped talking to him after the second time he’d tried shooting Moriarty, after trying to chase him down. After they left the pool.

            Maybe he should’ve taken that as a sign.

            Maybe this was exactly how it was going to be, if he couldn’t stop Sherlock from jumping. He’d left, at least, with a little sliver of Sherlock left in him, and he’d thought all the while that it was growing, that every time helped Sherlock, that every time he tried to rid the world of Moriarty, that he was gaining more of Sherlock back, until Sherlock would be whole again. He’d left with a little sliver and now, up here on the roof, hunched over in the shade of the shed with the lift, pushing bile back down his throat, he had nothing. If he couldn’t stop Sherlock from jumping, he would be so much more alone than he would ever have imagined one man could be. John coughed, and coughed, and then realized that he’d only done so to mask a dry and hiccupping sob and the little echoing breaths that followed.

            He wouldn’t be _alone_ , of course, not technically, not entirely. There was still Mary. She had scooped him up and saved him once before. But that was all they had discussed, wasn’t it? Now, John would go home, and Mary would know that he knew everything. John would come back to Mary a different man from before. He couldn’t make her stay with him, live with him, be his girlfriend or his wife forever knowing that he left one day doubtful but full of hope that he might get to save his friend, down but getting better, and came back the next shell-like, having uncovered, year by jump-to-year, the little facets of his feelings for Sherlock, the fact that he was completely _in love_ with someone dead, dead for good, who he couldn’t save for all his efforts. He couldn’t make her stay with him knowing that he had used her—however willing she’d been at the time—couldn’t expect her to continue letting him do so.

            She was a lovely friend. Maybe John could cling to her for enough support until he could get on his feet again. But he couldn’t stay with her. She deserved a fuller life than that.

            John stood up and, feeling that his legs had grown surer as he cooled down, paced around the roof with a wide distance placed between himself and the edge.

            If he couldn’t save Sherlock, then what?

            He chanced stepping just close enough to the edge that he could look down to where he’d stood below, eight months ago or in the sixteen or so months to come.

            Because he _would_ have to decide—he would have to decide what to do. He would have to decide how to try to save Sherlock, the instant he got up here and saw exactly what was happening.

            And if something was wrong, or if everything was wrong, he needed to know what to do then, too.

            He needed to know, if Sherlock’s phone call went differently, if he came up to the roof and checked if Sherlock was high and alone but perfectly fine, if he came up to the roof and found Moriarty there and gunned him down, if he came up to the roof and grabbed Sherlock just in time—he needed to know if pulling him close and tight, if pushing grateful kisses to his forehead, if rolling him to the center of the rooftop and punching him and then lowering his head into the crook of Sherlock’s neck and cradling Sherlock’s head and not coughing over faint sobs would be okay. He needed to know if he could grab Sherlock by the shoulders and snog him senseless to the tune of his lips outlining _you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive_. He needed to know if it would ruin them, if Sherlock would drift away after that, if Sherlock would move out or kick John out or, worse, if all the silences would become uncomfortable after that. He needed to know if he would have to limit himself to a brisk pat on the shoulder, or maybe a quick, tight hug. Because he _would_ do, he would, if he could just have Sherlock back. But he needed to _know_ , because Sherlock alive was better than none but Sherlock startled and hurt and uncomfortable was not a price John was willing to pay for stupid, impulsive behavior like a kiss.

            He needed to know if it was a possibility.

            And he needed to know what he would do, if Sherlock were gone for good, if John lost him again and then some, not just Sherlock but the ghost at his shoulder. If John ran up here a year and some from now and saw flickers of coattails over the edge, if John were faced with the prospect of going home emptier and more alone than anyone’s heart could withstand, standing right here, peering over the edge—if Sherlock, _Jesus_ , if Sherlock jumped again, if Sherlock still slipped off that edge not knowing that he _wasn’t_ alone, if Sherlock stood there still aching and thinking he wasn’t loved, still begging John, _Please, will you do this for me?_ , still suicidal, not knowing, not _knowing_ from his sodding skull to the center of his gut and everywhere in-between that John _loved_ him, and still leapt, and then crashed to the ground, what would John do?

            He needed time. Time to see. Time with Sherlock, unstained by the knowledge that the ending to Sherlock’s time on the roof—whatever it was—was inevitable. He needed to see, needed to watch Sherlock sprinting through the London streets one more time, and he _could_ do. He needed to see them smile together again, in case it would be the last time he’d see it. He needed to figure out how, exactly, he was going to make sure it wasn’t. He needed more time.

            And time, at least, was the one thing John had.

 

 

END PART III


	16. The Awful Edges (Where You End and I Begin) (Interlude B)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colonel Sebastian Moran hands me a cigarette and I take it. My hands are shaking and I unsuccessfully attempt to convince myself that it is because watching him smoke has me gasping for it, and not because of the news he and every other moron this (and the other) side of the Thames has given me.  
> John is…  
> Missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [Morwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) for the beta assistance!
> 
> If you are going to 221BCon and want to find me, I recommend you read my little intro post/see what I look like [here](http://toasterfish.tumblr.com/post/47443657370/221bcon-intro-post-cause-it-seemed-like-a-good). Also you should comment here and let me know/remind me, so that I can be sure to keep an eye out for you and make you sign John's notebook!
> 
> And now I'm gonna just...set this chapter down...and back away slowly.

_August 9, 2012_  

            “I haven’t seen the little fuck since February,” Colonel Sebastian Moran is saying to me, slumped over in his chair, as if he is kept conscious and alive only by the will to ensure that I leave his place of residence before he dies. For he _is_ dying, certainly, of _something_ , by the way he drinks. I have yet to deduce precisely what of, but I have four theories.

            He hands me a cigarette and I take it. My hands are shaking and I unsuccessfully attempt to convince myself that it is because watching him smoke has me gasping for it, and not because of the news he and every other moron this (and the other) side of the Thames has given me.

            John is…

            Missing.

            After noticing by the dust in the flat that John had barely lived there at all after my—after I fooled the world into thinking I was dead—that he hadn’t lived at the flat for some time, I acquired from a sniffling and sobbing Mrs. Hudson the name and most recent address of one Mary Morstan.

            Mrs. Hudson had clutched at my arm as if she could extract John from inside me and pulled me into a hug. “I thought I’d lost both my boys,” she’d said, and held me tighter as if such means were necessary to verify that I am real and breathing. Her smile was shaky and teary but genuine. She knew I could find John. She knew I did what I did for a reason, even though I never got to explaining it.

            I wrapped my arms around her.

            She hadn’t seen John for months.

            She said he visited regularly, for over half a year, and then one week was gone. I asked where he stayed when he wasn’t visiting. With one Miss Mary Morstan, she said. She wondered if Mary proposed and John got cold feet and ran off. That Mrs. Hudson hoped this was the case gave the pit of my stomach an odd and unexpected weight.

            I paid Mary a visit.

            “Oh my god,” she’d mouthed, over and over. “Did he do it? Did he do it?”

            I explained to her briefly the strategy I had employed to fool Moriarty’s men into believing I was dead, asked when she had last seen John.

            “He left,” she said, “in a time machine. To save you.” She added hurriedly, “And I know for a fact the machine worked.”

            “I know,” I told her quietly _. That_ was why he traveled back, that was _when_ he traveled back. Because he thought I was dead. He didn’t leave with me; it was never a matter of what happened to me while we time-traveled. It was never anything but John leaving for _me_ , just for me, alone, on a mission to save me. Perhaps, since he had the chance, he visited me when I was younger to see what I was like. But John’s a man who highly regards privacy. He was seeking me out _then_ for a reason.

            John thought I killed myself.

            He went back to save me.

            He went back to save me and he thought he could change the reason I jumped.

            He thought, maybe, that I felt alone, isolated, unwanted, unloved. He became exactly the reason I didn’t. He always was exactly the reason I didn’t.

            Cogs in my brain that spent the past two and a half years of my life stuck in place shifted slightly, and finished one complete rotation and locked together. Like a full solar eclipse they slid into place and finally allowed me to stare into the sun: the entire story, from John’s perspective. Because John, of course, did not know me from a young age. John did not name a skull after me nor obsess over when he would meet me next. John was John, and then John went to Afghanistan, and then John came back alone and isolated and unwanted and unloved, and then he met me.

           This was just a year and a half for John, a year and a half in which he always knew where I was, a year and a half in which he could contact me whenever he pleased. It was just a year and a half for John but within a single day he was willing to kill for me and within two months he was willing to die for me. He didn’t have a spare second to think; he just did and did and did, relentlessly, making up for the time discrepancy between us so quickly that I forgot that to John I was not a childhood dream come true, however much he may have acted like it.

            And then I let him think I died, and vanished for over a year, to save him.

            And he got access to a means to time-travel, and he left, and he saw me. And he saved me, whether it was the way in which he meant to or not. And John ought to have been back long ago. He ought to have been at 221B, or at Miss Morstan’s, or somewhere I could find him, so my cogs could slip one more time and whip the shadow off the sun when we locked eyes and realized we were finally, for the first time in three decades, for the first time in two and a half years, on the same page. I would know everything. He would know everything.

           “I met him when I was six,” I finally told Mary.

            “You drew him a map.”

           I nodded, and swallowed, and had no words.

            She invited me in for tea.

            For the most part we sat quietly together.

            “He said he’d come back the next day, or the day after,” Mary finally said. “I held on for weeks. Months. But I got an offer from another library to be head librarian, so I moved. I figured…well. He’d be smart enough to find me, of course.”

            “Of course,” I said over the tea. John’s brand, as if he bought enough of the stuff to last him a year and left his—girlfriend, or whatever she is to him, the rest of it.

            “If you don’t know what happened to him,” Mary finally muttered over the rustle of her clothing as she stood, as if she hoped her words would pass without my hearing them, “he must never have gotten to tell you.”

            “Tell me what?”

            She looked to me with pitying eyes and shook her head. She took my cup and rinsed it carefully while I waited for her to answer me. Instead, she said, “Maybe you should talk to your brother. He’s come by several times looking for John. Maybe he knows something I don’t.”

            I managed not to correct her on the vastness of her understatement primarily by way of the quivering of my gut distracting me.

            One of Mycroft’s vehicles was waiting for me when I left her flat.

            Of course.

            I climbed in.

            The day was supposed to have gone thusly: I would return to John, and explain to him what happened. He would become angry, to which he does have some right, and potentially strike me or else barely restrain his violent motions, but then some time later see sense, and call me all sorts of names that sound like insults but are, in fact, terms of endearment from John. I would demand he tell me about his time-travel. He would do so after insisting we have a proper meal, which we would do. It would be takeaway, probably Chinese. I would order from that godawful restaurant I saw him at a decade ago, just to see if he remembered its hot-and-sour. (He would. John remembers things like that. Sentiment.) And as we ate he would tell me all the things he did, and confirm my theory that he was responsible for the conviction of Nolan Bachmeier for the two murders that were deemed to have sufficient evidence (out of a total of at least six, and I am sure two more of these could be proven). He would want to watch a film, as we do.

            I would lean my head against his shoulder forty-six minutes into the film, or at the nearest time to that in which a man shoots a gun or does something similarly obviously comparable to Things John Does. And if John liked that, I would curl tighter against him. Eventually, my head would work its way into his lap. He would run his fingers through my hair. The film would become extremely dull from that point on, even more so than usual. We would stop watching it: John looking at my forehead as he runs his fingers through my hair, me with my eyes closed. We would fall asleep just so. John would wake up and I would have made him tea and then curled back up beside him and he would know. He would know everything he needed to.

            But the day was nothing like that.

            “Brother,” Mycroft had said when I got into his car. He was sitting in the back seat, waiting. His expression was very carefully neutral, which meant what he had to say was more taxing to him than the sort of information he was used to delivering so easily (execution authorizations, negotiations for political sway using sums that could feed small countries). He finally said, “I take it you have heard about John’s—unusual circumstances.”

            “Do you mean,” I started to say, and realized it was through gritted teeth, “the ones in which you seem, for once, to not immediately have known his exact location and to retrieve him for me?”

            “I was referring to his time-travel.”

            “I’ve known about that since nineteen-bloody-eighty-four,” I told him, still at a hiss. “ _Where is he?_ ”

            Mycroft was silent for some time. “We don’t know,” he finally said. “He disappeared in February, presumably to go back in time. He, under the impression you died, of course, believed he would be able to save your life.”

            “And you didn’t stop him?”

            He shook his head at me like the condescending arse he is.

            “If you haven’t got any information for me,” I told him, “I’ll be getting out now.”

            “Sherlock,” Mycroft said. “You must at least consider the possibility that his journey ended…unfavorably.”

            The only thing that prevented me from breaking his nose was that my hands were occupied unlocking the car door and preparing to open it.

            “No,” was all I could think to say to him.

            “You aren’t done yet, Sherlock,” was what Mycroft said to me as the vehicle slowed down. “Don’t forget that you still owe Sebastian Moran a visit.”

            I was going to do so with John. John deserved that. It would be the first thing we would do together tomorrow, after I uncurl late in the morning and he’s still sitting there, perhaps typing on his laptop, and he looks down at me with those fractal wrinkles of kindness around his eyes. We’d get up and wash up and I would go out the door and John would follow, and everything would be exactly as it should.

            But instead, I had to do it myself. If there is one man in London who is more aware of John’s whereabouts than Mycroft, I thought, it would be the man hired to kill him.

            “I haven’t seen the little fuck since February,” he says, after I all but kick down the door to the dingy flat my sources traced him to, after I loom close and find myself exhaling heavily through my nostrils as I demand the whereabouts of John Watson.

            My entire chest seizes.

            “And you gave up on watching him, did you?” I ask, finally.

            “Fuck no. Not at first. But anyone I could’ve used to track him down kept getting killed, strange enough.” He narrows his eyes at me. “I kept at it for months but all I got was not a single bleeding lead. S’pose he offed himself like he thought _you_ did?” He asks it with a weight to his voice that I recognize but cannot identify.

            “Never,” I say. He came back, after all, to save me.

            “Heard some barking mad nonsense about time-travel.”

            “From whom?”

            “He told that bird of his about it about a day before he disappeared. February, what, sixteenth?” He narrows his eyes again. “Oh, sod it all, you don’t mean that bullshit is true?”

            I nod.

“Well, in that case I’m supposing he left and didn’t come back. Maybe he figured you for dead here and decided he may as well go back to when you were alive, huh?”

            “And you suppose it’s my being gone, that motivated this behavior?”

            He levels me a long look that initially strikes me as his trying to focus through the booze he’s swimming in but which I realize, eventually, holds more weight. If I had returned alive to John at the flat, this man would have shot John out of something resembling jealousy.

            “I see,” I finally say.

            “If he did it,” Moran continues as if he hasn’t heard me, “then fucking excellent, and I hope he had a good crack of it. Sod probably got to die happy. Maybe he blew up the universe fucking himself. That’s how I’d go out, it is.”

             It isn’t. He knows this, and I observe that he knows this, and he observes that I observe that he knows this.

            “And if you’re keeping information from me?” I ask. I itch at the back of my trousers to make him well aware that I’ve stowed a gun there.

            “If I knew where your bloody pet is I’d be gone already with his time machine,” Sebastian says, possibly quite without meaning to.

            “I see,” I say again. He is, I think, telling the truth. “Then I have no reason to believe that when I do find him, you will do him any harm whatsoever?”

            “Call me up and we’ll have tea and everything,” he says. Whatever day it is that I will find John, Sebastian Moran does not plan to live to that day. “Now get the fuck out of my flat.”

            So I do.

 

 

 

            Only when I am in a cab back to Baker Street does it hit me that I am out of leads.

            The homeless network has come back with nothing.

            Mrs. Hudson knows nothing.

            John’s girlfriend, who knew more about John’s plans than anyone, knows nothing.

           Mycroft, of all the nosiest men in London, knows nothing.

           Sebastian Moran, who all records indicated was due to take over for James Moriarty upon his death, who was assigned the singular task of keeping an eye on John Watson should anything inexplicable, such as his flatmate’s return from the dead, arise—knows nothing.

            But there must be some clue.

           I am a detective.

           I will detect.

           I will find out what happened to John, and then I will find him, and I will possibly either investigate his reaction to a solid punch from me to his jaw for frightening Mrs. Hudson so, or else more slowly acquire all the missing data by way of stepping up close and gathering all his wrinkles and scents and sounds. By curling close.

            When I come back in, Mrs. Hudson peeks out her door hopefully. I shake my head. She pulls me close, and then lets me go and sniffles. “You’ll figure it out, Sherlock. You always do, don’t you?”

            “I will,” I say much more loudly than I mean to, on my way up the seventeen stairs between Mrs. Hudson and where John ought to be.

            The dust in the flat, as I observed earlier, is gathered up everywhere, as if John didn’t touch it once after I faked my death.

           But he came here, I am sure, now that I look about—just as Mrs. Hudson said, brief visits. There is a faint path visible along the carpet; a path he would have had to have paced with some regularity, compared to the rest of his steps in this place. It leads past my chair and to the window, and then back around to the kitchen. At the one end before it turns around, it stops before the window.

            Here is a handprint: mine.

            _John_.

            Was that what he was looking at? Or was he merely checking outside? Why not clean it off?

            I follow the path back to the kitchen and my chest experiences another, more minor seizure to the one I felt before, something much more rattling than ought to be caused by a couple of mugs. One is relatively empty of anything—John had made tea in it and drank it, and failed to put the cup away—and one empty of liquid but full of evidence, of— Thick rings line the inside of it. It had been filled and all the tea has evaporated out.

            John made two cups of tea. He left one to sit and drank the other.

            I open the cupboard. The handles of the other two mugs face left: John put them back, not Mrs. Hudson. I lift them up and see the faint stains inside one of more rings, as if John has tried to clean the mug but didn’t put in quite as much effort as he might have if they had been full of, say, corneas. The rings are absent in the other mug. My mug and John’s mug.

            _John_.

            His path leads back by the fireplace, past the skull. Here, he must stop for a while. Does he speak to it, before he leaves on his journey to the past? It hasn’t been moved, either, after all these months. If I could have brought it with me during my absence, I very well might have done. Instead I had to resort to speaking to an invisible John. He made his small quiet utterances of “amazing” at my deductions, and he said stupid things that put me on the right path. Sometimes, he chastised me, when he found my behavior particularly unbecoming of anyone wishing to function within society. Once he chastised me when I broke down and cracked open my emergency box and indulged in my old habit. I laid in a daze on the hotel bed while he shouted, and shouted himself hoarse, and I finally apologized. He sat down on the bed with me and it felt so real, in the haze of the cocaine, as if an imagined presence could emit warmth and faint sounds. And then we lay there together and he set his hand on top of mine and just let it stay there.

            The skull, of course, can tell me nothing about whether John stood here and spoke to it, or to me, as I spoke to him.

            “John,” I say, just to test it. Quietly, so that Mrs. Hudson won’t hear and misunderstand.

            The skull says nothing. How many hours did I spend speaking to it before I met John? I lift it from its place to rub the dust off with my thumbs.

            A small, folded paper falls out.

            That wasn’t there before. This has been placed here since I searched the place for cameras. It could be from anyone. It may have been left by Moriarty.

            I count the number of times my heart fails to pump blood out.

One.

            It could be from anyone.

Two.

            John hid my cigarettes here, once.

            Three.

            It is probably from John.

            I set the skull back on the mantelpiece to retrieve the paper from the floor and unfold it. It’s a small letter, a, a—

            A note.

 

            _Sherlock,_

it reads, in what is unmistakably John’s handwriting when he is trying to make sure it is legible. The particular form the letters of my name take when he writes them are much like when he speaks my name: somehow different to how I’ve ever seen or heard it done before, despite its being the same name I’ve always had.

            I read on. My fingers are twitching of—adrenaline, must be. Of adrenaline and a temporarily malfunctioning sinoatrial node.

 

_I don’t know what’s going to happen, but trust me, if you’re reading this and I’m not there it still ended better than it would have._

Wobbling, gasping noises work their way into my breathing. Stupid. John. John, John, _John._ No.

 

_I know because I was there the first time it happened. You jumped off a building and died and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop you. So whatever happened, if you’re reading this, it’s better this way. It means you lived._

“No,” I say, out loud this time.

 

_This sounds strange, but I suspect you’ll believe me: I time traveled to change it._

I do believe you, John—but what could you have changed? It went exactly as I planned, and I planned on doing it all without you. What did you _do_ , John? Did you—good god, John, did you even _get_ to—well, of course you did. Of course you did. Of course you got to the point where you could have changed something, or what else would have happened to stop you? Nothing, surely. Nothing could stop you, John.

 

_It was a case I got after you died, a bloke who disappeared with a time machine and his friend wanted me to find him. We met in your past—do you remember any of it? It’s fine if you don’t. Maybe that’s not how time-travel works, maybe that’s a parallel universe or something, I don’t know. But I didn’t want to make us not meet later. I tried to make sure you wouldn’t remember me. Now that I’m gone, though, I guess it’s okay if you do._

It’s not okay, John. Of course I remember you, but it’s not okay, that you’ve written this letter and you aren’t here right now to explain it to me. It makes little to no sense, John. It makes no sense.

 

            _I wanted to make sure you knew. I mean, I wanted to make sure you knew_ that _, for one. But I also want you to know that I never got to tell you how much I care about you. I’m sure you deduced it, but there it is straight from me._

John. “John.” Where is he? He must be about. He _must_ be.

 

_I didn’t really know it at the time, but I do now, and if I’m not around to tell you in person, well, then I’m sorry for being too late. Don’t let it bother you, if it does. I just wanted to be honest._

‘Bother’ me. Bother me? You are _sorely_ mistaken about what part of this bothers me, John.

_Thank you for being you. You’re something else, Sherlock. Don’t do anything too stupid while I’m gone, got it? No drugs or running around more recklessly than strictly necessary (I know you’ll do it anyway). And definitely no jumping off buildings. I think I could probably strangle you once you get to the afterlife, so let’s not make it unpleasant, all right?_

No, John. Absolutely not. This is—unacceptable. The paper shakes. My hands shake.

 

_Of course if I’ve written this all for nothing and I’m actually fine and you’ve found it in the bin or whatever, then please delete it from your mind so I can tell you in person and see your face when I do—if I haven’t already._

I want to delete it because that will mean he’s here. I want to delete it just in case he’s not.

 

_Thank you. For everything. Next time I see you I’ll be stopping you from going up to that damned rooftop, and let’s hope that’s not the last time I see you._

But you didn’t John—and thank god, because—but you _didn’t_ , because—why? Where were you? What happened to you?

            I look down to the bottom of the paper and close my eyes and the last lines are burned there.

 

_~~L~~_

_John_

My ears buzz like a dead phone line.

            I crumple to the ground. What else can I do?

            My mobile rings, some minutes later (possibly longer). It’s Mycroft. I throw the phone across the room and it hits the sofa and slides down between the cushions before coming to a stop.

            Eventually, I join it on the sofa, curled up where John ought to be. I fall asleep and wake up after nightfall with the faint taut tug of dried up tracks down my face, and I fall asleep again, and I wake up and make John’s cup of tea, and wait for him to come home for hours, and days, and cups, and cases, and weeks, and months, and the tea always evaporates first.


	17. The Pavement Is Aching (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John watched himself and Sherlock appear farther down the street, small figures taking quick steps in close proximity, and felt his heart lurch violently in their direction. He shivered at the sound of the two of them alive and well and together and talking. It ached like memories of Christmases to remember the feeling of being half of a whole; it ached like a ghost limb to yearn for the feeling of being half of _them_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asldkfjafdlkj Yes, I still exist, this story still exists, and it IS being finished, fear not! I am just slow and busy and I tripped and lost my writing groove at some point around the end of April and it's taken me this long to start getting it back. I hope you'll forgive me as I work away the rust! (And also, given the preceding interlude and some of the stuff to come, enjoy this limited-time offer of one relatively anguish-free chapter? XD) Agh, I am so excited to share the rest of this story with you guys! Your support and continued interest have meant the world to me and really helped me keep going with it. Trust me, this thing is definitely getting done. This story is my baby and the idea of not finishing it feels approximately like how I imagine a mother would feel about giving birth to 17/21sts of a child and then telling the nurse, "Good enough, chop it off there!" 
> 
> Oh, and also, now that I am FINALLY posting another chapter, I am thinking that soon I will be scanning in the things that I brought with me to 221BCon when I dressed as Moebius!John (John's notebook, receipts, notes from Sherlock and Mummy Holmes, etc....basically anything I could think of that John has had in his pocket/wallet in this story, short of a gun). Some of you saw me in person and signed John's notebook (it was SO AMAZING to get to meet you guys! I still have intense happy feels when I think back about it!). I think I even still have that shriveled up apple core sitting around here somewhere. Anyway, so I hope to post that in the near future; keep an eye out for it either as some kind of images or something here on AO3, or else I will put a link to somewhere you can look at it when I post the next chapter (or add it to the notes for one). I didn't want to wait 'til I did that to post this though, 'cause, you guys have done enough waiting.
> 
> Finally and as always, immeasurable gratitude to [Morwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) for being the most patient and understanding and...awesomely present?...beta on Earth. Any remaining errors or bits of this chapter where it's super obvious that I haven't been writing much lately are 100% my doing. 
> 
> (Title to this section from lyrics to Ludo's "Streetlights.")

            John breathed out slowly and stuffed his hands into his pockets as he heard the faint scuffling of two men approaching this street.

          March still hadn’t shaken off its chill, especially in the nighttime drizzle. John knew he would be rounding the corner he watched from an alleyway shortly, wearing the same jacket he was wearing right now. Sherlock had all but thrown it at him that evening before waltzing out the door to 221B with the quickness his long legs allowed him. John had almost yelled after him that one crime a day was plenty—the smugglers technically arrested just after midnight and it not even being twenty-four hours past that—but instead sighed, and shrugged on the jacket, and sprinted out of the flat only to find Sherlock waiting for him, almost serenely, just outside.

            He’d been silent, but he often was, as they stalked through the darkening streets. John had kept a sharp eye out for anything out of place, but, without any idea of what Sherlock was looking for and especially with as little sleep as he’d had, kept up by his late-night kidnapping and nightmares of guns to his head, he felt useless.

            But he’d followed Sherlock anyway, because Sherlock had thrown his coat at him, had seemed to bolt so urgently. And whenever Sherlock needed him, John had already decided, even after two months, even if he hadn’t realized he’d decided it at the time, he would always be there when needed.

            So he’d thought, anyway.

            He’d felt lost and pointless with Sherlock on this manhunt, or clue-hunt, or whatever it was, up until they’d turned here.

            This wouldn’t be the last time it happened, but it would be one of only few, John thought, balling his fists a little to help keep them warm. It was something he held close that night, and the day after that, and in three days when he was kidnapped again, that time by Moriarty.

            John watched himself and Sherlock appear farther down the street, small figures taking quick steps in close proximity, and felt his heart lurch violently in their direction. Here were two people made whole by one another; here was what John had been so acutely missing for the better part of a year.

            They’d be passing the little pie shop when it would happen, its striped overhang and street address burned into John’s mind as landmarks. The two of them were silent, and at this point John, then-John, had stopped glancing around for every detail, had resigned himself to merely being along for the ride on Sherlock’s search and stared warily from the corners of his eyes.

            And then John had stopped. It was a quick pause, a half a step fallen behind, before he started walking again.

            “Sherlock,” then-John finally said, carefully.

            “Mm?”

            Now-John shivered at the sound of the two of them alive and well and together and talking. It ached like memories of Christmases to remember the feeling of being half of a whole; it ached like a ghost limb to yearn for the feeling of being half of _them_. This, he realized, was his life—in what at this time had been just a few short months of knowing Sherlock, _this_ state of beinghad become John’s neutral, John’s ideal, John’s image of how things would always be as long as he lived. _This_ was what he needed back.

            “We aren’t looking for anything, are we?”

            Sherlock’s smirk was silent and soft—like a fond facial tic, John could see now, from the dim lighting along the streets and from the windows of the few shops still open; like “John’s just made an obvious observation” had already and so quickly etched itself into Sherlock’s features as a preset expression, ready at a moment’s notice.

            But John, then-John, hadn’t seen it, had been too busy trying not to look into Sherlock’s eyes, had held out and refused to hope anything about what was happening.

            “I can’t believe they mistook you for me,” Sherlock finally said with a huff that puffed out visibly into the air.

            “Yeah, what a load of bollocks,” then-John answered, and John wondered how he hadn’t noticed then the breathy way he said it, like sloughing mountains, like he was already getting sucked inch by bloody inch into the warmth of Sherlock’s coat and the chest inside it, because he was.

            “Well, perhaps the rest of London’s finest criminals will learn a lesson from it.”

            “Probably see that photo of you they’re putting in tomorrow’s paper, too.”

            “Don’t remind me.”

            John pulled himself back farther into the alley as the two of them neared the adjacent section of pavement, hid himself in the shadows and merely listened.

            “John,” Sherlock said in a sober tone half an octave lower than before, “while I cannot promise your safety—nor, I think, do you want me to—I do want—I will be more cautious about leaving others such an opportunity to…”

            “Kidnap me because they think I’m you?” then-John chuckled, and John recognized the uneasy notes of the laugh. “Right, I don’t think that’s a big risk.”

            John breathed quietly as just at the mouth of the alley Sherlock paused, took a quick step forward to stop then-John for a moment in his tracks. The both of them were silent, but John remembered Sherlock’s eyes as they bored into him, remembered a faint brush of pressure against his coat sleeve that only later would he realize could be attributed to an aborted touch from Sherlock.

            John heard Sherlock’s lips clip open, the city’s other sounds distant in the soft and snowlike drizzle. Sherlock breathed out a round sound, like, he thought, maybe over-hopefully, his mouth was forming _John_.

            And then Sherlock turned his head away from then-John, thoughtful, even agitated at something, as if he were itching at the roof of his mouth for the right words. His gaze fixed on the corner of the building at the front of the alley in which John hid and watched, affording him as clear a view as he’d ever be able to get of the way Sherlock looked when he thought to himself, when he thought not under the eyes of a room or a group or even just John—when he thought, maybe, _about_ John.

            “Sherlock?” John heard himself ask in tentative tones.

            Sherlock turned back to him, to then-John, silent for several moments. Then he asked, “Have you had anything to eat?”

            “Not since lunch,” John admitted.

            “Then perhaps we should find someplace to eat. Not this place,” he nodded at the pie shop, “horrid mold problems. There’s a better one two streets north.”

            John saw the corner of his mouth turn up a little before they started walking again, continuing down the street, two people operating as one unit. “If I get something, you’d better too.”

            “I ate yesterday.”

            “Exactly.” Now-John saw then-John avert his eyes and shake his head at Sherlock, and he wondered, as Sherlock chuckled distantly at John’s exasperation, whether he would have noticed more, would have _known_ more about whatever it was that went on inside Sherlock’s head at moments like this if he’d just paid a little more attention, if he’d just pushed harder. Instead, Sherlock let John’s constant concern over his health serve as a distraction from the more important issues, from whatever question John had _meant_ to ask before Sherlock brought up food, and John let his doctor’s training take over and steer him to safety, away from those questions of sentiment, of heart, that even an adrenaline junkie dared not tackle. _Let’s get some food,_ after all, was so much easier than, _Do you love me?_

            He heard another faint snort from Sherlock at John’s continued antagonized comments as they retreated farther and farther past, as the drizzle once more blanketed their breathing and their speech. He strained and swore he caught “something other than a moronic spy film,” before the two of them turned at the corner to head north, elbows bumping together, little puffs of air issuing from their mouths when they grinned at each other and laughed.

            John sighed to himself and retreated back the way he’d come, and felt his heart tug to leave his chest and drive him back toward himself and Sherlock. Because it was what he wanted, in the end, wasn’t it? This again, exactly this, and maybe, if he was lucky, a little more. He wanted Sherlock back, _needed_ Sherlock back, but it wasn’t just Sherlock he needed. It was the two of them, driving one another up the wall and then having a laugh about it, butting heads and then saving one another’s lives from all the stupid things they each were guilty of getting into. If he was going to tell Sherlock how he felt, he needed Sherlock to stay, even if Sherlock was disinterested in the kinds of hopes bubbling up in John’s mind, because John needed Sherlock, yes, but some essential part of him would wither away, he was sure, without the two of them _together_ , flatmates again, friends again.

            Whatever more he may have hoped for, _that_ was what he needed: to once more be the other half of one completely mad man named Sherlock Holmes, with whom he just so happened to have fallen stupidly in love and not realized it until after he was—gone. He supposed he couldn’t blame anyone in particular for not warning him; anyway, there was a lot about Sherlock that was impossible to predict.

            And, John supposed, others had tried their best, assuming so much about he and Sherlock; it was the closest they could come, wasn’t it? For while, of course, Angelo and Mrs. Hudson and everyone else had been off the mark about candles and bedrooms and the lot, they couldn’t have known, couldn’t have known to predict that line they straddled, couldn’t have perceived that although Sherlock and John were in a relationship it didn’t mean they were dating or shagging or a hundred other things. But _in a relationship_ —that’s what two people in _love_ were, wasn’t it?

            There was one person who knew that, though, and before John did.

            There was one person who’d said it right out, to John’s face—unknowingly, to Sherlock’s, too.

            And, John thought, he had to see Sherlock’s face when she said it.

 

 

 

            He waited in the rafters just above, and tucked far enough away that when Sherlock quietly slipped in just before then-John entered the abandoned power station, John could evade his gaze. From his place, Sherlock might only glimpse him if he looked in just the right direction—which was unlikely, given that he would have a much more interesting scene to observe just below. It was funny, John thought, that for all the times he had been in the background of Sherlock’s past, maybe Sherlock had followed John enough to be in the background of John’s just as many times. And if he’d thought to mute his phone, well—John would never have known he’d been here, would he have? And maybe that would have changed something. Maybe John’s heart wouldn’t have stilled for just that half-second as he panicked and wondered what Sherlock knew, what he didn’t, what he perceived about John’s words, whether they were sensible or cruel or good. Maybe not knowing Sherlock had been here observing John would have changed a thousand other things about the ways they treated each other.

            But here John was, to observe Sherlock observing.

            He heard his own words echo through the building, updates on Sherlock’s behavior to who he’d assumed then was Mycroft. “…I’d say he was heartbroken, but…” John glanced over to Sherlock, hunched over slightly in the rafters with his hands stuffed in his pockets as he listened in. “He does all that anywa…” As Irene slipped from around the corner, John, now-John, saw, Sherlock’s eyes remained pinned on then-John, only belatedly shifting their focus to Irene, as if he’d half been expecting her anyway. _Maybe he was_ , thought John. _Maybe he knew all along she’d faked her death, and it was just some stupid act to keep Mycroft and anybody else from looking for her. No, can’t have been, he seemed so…distraught._

His attention was brought back to himself when he heard a command issued harshly, desperately from his mouth: “Tell him you’re alive.” John glanced back at Sherlock, but his face was almost entirely impassive, his only change being a half a breath quickly drawn in and then let out slowly.

            “He’d come after me.”

            “ _I’ll_ come after you if you don’t.”

            Now-John frowned to himself; at the time, he’d been so certain she was right that he hadn’t thought to ask about it. But _would_ Sherlock have gone after her? _Of course he’d have done,_ now-John thought. Sherlock Bloody Holmes couldn’t leave a game un-won. _But is that what you thought then—right now?_ He’d been at odds with himself the entire time since Irene’s rather dramatic initial appearance in their lives, about whether Sherlock was enamored with Irene any way but intellectually. It certainly seemed like it, but, as then-John had so aptly pointed out, Sherlock’s behaviors were odd even when they were normal. No, at this moment, he hadn’t given it a second thought; he just knew Sherlock would go after her at least to continue their game, and he knew that her death had upset Sherlock. At that time, at the shock of seeing her alive, at the rage that had reared up inside him at the thought of someone wreaking that kind of emotional havoc on Sherlock, being able to own up to it, and then refusing to do so, he didn’t really _care_ what Sherlock was going to do with the information, just that Sherlock know it and feel better, and become himself again.

            Sherlock took in another half a breath as Irene said, “Mmm, I believe you,” and John couldn’t tell if it was his words or Irene’s that had inspired it. Maybe Sherlock had perceived all of that intent behind John’s threat. Maybe he just liked the sound of Irene’s confidence.

            “You were dead on a slab,” then-John continued, and John could just make out a knit in Sherlock’s brow, as if watching John’s disbelief was painful to him, as if it was frustrating to watch someone try to accept something so _obvious_ as someone coming back to life. “It was definitely you.” Or maybe that wasn’t it at all: John, after all, had not been with Sherlock to see Irene’s body. John had made just that assertion based solely on the information he’d gotten from Mycroft; perhaps that rubbed Sherlock the wrong way.

            “DNA tests,” Irene said, “are only as good as the records you keep.” Sherlock smiled briefly at this, although through the dim and dust-filtered light John couldn’t tell if it was genuine or wry.

            “By the way, you know the record keeper,” then-John said, repeating back the beginning of the phrase Irene had uttered to them just enough times that it had started grating against his nerves.

            “I know what he likes,” Irene finished it. “And I needed to disappear.”

            _How convenient for you_ , John thought. _Bloody hell, if_ we _just could have disappeared._ He imagined if they had run off to St. Bart’s to hide, for Sherlock to try to puzzle things out, and could have just stayed that way, if they could have stayed gone long enough for Sherlock to sort himself out, for John to help Sherlock sort himself out, and then come back to life like Irene. He couldn’t have known then that Sherlock would be disappearing forever. _Not forever_ , he reminded himself. _You’re going to change that._

            As then-John and Irene continued what could only at its most positive be considered a conversation, John watched Sherlock, watched him take a step back as if he were getting ready to leave, or to pace back and forth. He steepled his fingers together beneath his chin and watched carefully, leaned farther forward as Irene said, “It’s for his own safety.”

            His hands fell slowly back to his sides when John replied, “So is this: Tell him you’re alive.”

            “I can’t.”

            “Fine,” and then-John’s face was wrought with distress, his breathing heavy, “ _I’ll_ tell him, and I _still_ won’t help you.”

            Sherlock’s hand came up to his mouth, as if he were trying to stop himself from saying something to John right then. Maybe it was something stupid, like, “Don’t be an idiot, John, there’s no reason to get so worked up about it.” Maybe it was something more; maybe it wasn’t words at all. Then-John turned and started marching away, and Sherlock’s gaze followed him, his hand drifting faintly in that direction.

            “What do I say?” Irene called out.

            And John turned back with the ire of an aggravated animal. “ _What do you normally say?_ ” he rent into her. “You’ve texted him _a lot_!”

            Sherlock, for some reason, appeared to find this amusing; he smiled. He looked to Irene. John watched him shift his weight to get a better view of her face as she answered, as she read off her texts, as she bemoaned Sherlock’s complete lack of replies, at her growing excitement at being _special._ “You jealous?” she asked. Finally, Sherlock looked to John.

            “We’re not a couple—” then-John started to say, and John watched Sherlock glance down slightly. Bloody hell, did that _mean_ something, that glance? Was he checking the time or had John’s saying that bothered him, or was it something else entirely? John couldn’t make out his face with it tilted down like that.

            “Yes you are,” Irene said. Sherlock looked up, eyes flitting between Irene and then-John. Then-John stared as Irene composed her text.

            “Who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes,” he said, and now, now-John winced a little, knowing what was coming, knowing that maybe things had changed a little, whether it was himself or just how well he knew himself who bloody knew. He wished desperately Sherlock could have found out, could have known that perhaps it wasn’t _exactly_ like that, that perhaps whatever John _actually_ was, it wasn’t the slightest bit relevant to the fact that he _loved_ Sherlock. And he had to succeed, he _had_ to save Sherlock so that he could know, because the further dip of Sherlock’s head as then-John said, “But, for the record, if anyone out there still cares, I’m not actually gay,” struck a hollow spot in John’s chest, made his eyes burn just a little.

He saw Sherlock look back up and swallow, so close but so untouchably far, and thought about how he could tell him now, he _could_ do, but he couldn’t, but he might never be this close again, and so he mouthed, “I love you.”

            “Well I _am,_ ” Irene was saying. “Look at us both.”

            And there was something to that, wasn’t there? And it hadn’t taken Irene time-traveling through her flatmate’s life to realize it, to realize that maybe sex meant bugger-all when it came to love, to realize that maybe it was possible for the only difference between, “I will never have a friend as close as you,” and, “I love you,” to be naught more but a willingness to say it.

            As Sherlock’s mobile moaned, John ducked deeper into hiding to watch him walk briskly out, his face an unreadable storm of emotion contained just beneath the sharp and glassy shine of his eyes.

            _Bloody hell_ , John thought. _What if he loved me too?_

            _What if he was trying to say so all along?_

            He leaned back against the wall and remembered the pool, James Bond, the mobiles, the sofa: “John? I wanted to…say…”

            He had to go back.

 

 


	18. The Pavement Is Aching (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From 221C, the flat’s lock freshly picked, John heard a buzz that had traveled from the chair through the floor and down into the ceiling and walls; that would be Sarah texting him again to ask what happened. “Give that here,” he could hear Sherlock saying with startling clarity through the pipe, his sudden speech a stark contrast to the past few minutes’ silence. The depth of its pitch, John was certain, quite nearly vibrated the room every bit as much as the mobile had—or maybe it was just John’s stomach, just his chest cavity, just his innards and his heart doing the vibrating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha! Finally! Apologies for the delay, beginning of a new semester and all that. The next chapter is already well underway and I will do my best to get that one out sooner than it took me to do this one. (At the same time, I need to get it perfect as it's a very important one, so I hope you will forgive me if I take my time on it if I need to!) By the way, thanks to you all for your lovely (and/or highly frustrated, sad, or generally full of feels) comments. They really help me find the energy to keep working on this story even after I've had a long day. I really treasure them and I hope you will continue to leave them.  
> (I know I still haven't gotten to posting the things from my Moebius!John cosplay at 221BCon yet. Need to make a note to myself to do that!)
> 
> Many, many thanks to my fantastic beta [Morwen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) as well as the bonus extra beta help from [Chucksauce](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chucksauce)!

            When John and Sherlock—then-John, then-Sherlock—stepped back into the flat for what had then felt like the first time in ages, but had only been, at most, a few hours, the air was still. Their breathing calmed as the door clicked shut: _safe and sound_.

            From 221C, the flat’s lock freshly picked, John heard one person’s weight shift just up the stairs and to his left. It was his; he knew it. He was trying to think of a way to tell Sherlock, _let’s just get upstairs_ , or _it’s not your fault, you twat, and we’re alive so what’s it matter?_ But Sherlock wasn’t hesitating for those reasons; Sherlock wasn’t hesitating at all. He was just quiet, thoughtful. John’s mobile buzzed and he heard himself jump slightly, and then disguise the movement as the start of his climb upstairs.

            He walked across the room with the sound of the stairs, following the faint creaking above him, running his hand along the damp, cool wall of 221C. Just here there would be a pipe that ran from the boiler, past this wall and up to 221B; just there, an air vent. Sherlock himself had requested John help him find these once, trying to pinpoint where Mycroft could have possibly planted more devices for listening in on the goings-on of 221B. He stationed John down here and paced around upstairs, humming faint tunes to see if John could identify them, muttering things to himself at varying volumes. The boiler pipe just inches from John’s ear through a thin and flimsy wall conducted sound from the sitting room like electricity through a wire.

            From the other side of the ceiling there was a creak as Sherlock collapsed onto the sofa; not a hint of speech, he had sat there deep in thought while John toed off his shoes and then took a seat in his armchair. John could hear a buzz that had traveled from the chair through the floor and down into the ceiling and walls of 221C; that would be Sarah texting him again to ask what happened.

            “Give that here,” he could hear Sherlock saying with startling clarity through the pipe, his sudden speech a stark contrast to the past few minutes’ silence. The depth of its pitch, John was certain, quite nearly vibrated the room every bit as much as the mobile had—or maybe it was just John’s stomach, just his chest cavity, just his innards and his heart doing the vibrating.

            “It’s just Sarah,” he heard himself say, or practically heard himself say; it was a bit muffled, but he could fill in the blanks. John paced as quietly as he could to the adjacent wall, the almost-as-good air vent, leaning the side of his head just barely against the wall so that his ears could pick up the fainter sounds—a little creak from over there as Sherlock leaned forward.

            “Exactly,” he was saying. “John. Your phone. Now.”

            The words were so clipped and so demanding; but, John thought, it was not really so different from all the times John had demanded Sherlock eat, was it? Perhaps he had noticed—of _course_ he had noticed—John’s slight jump at each buzz, the way his eyes darted around even when he closed them to hide it. His motions, John remembered, had been slow and gentle, as he leaned forward with beckoning fingers.

            John heard himself stand up, crossing the room on uncertain legs, still shaking from adrenaline and exhaustion and relief and the little bit of weakness his heart was inducing in his knees. “What for?” he asked, more loudly, when the footsteps stopped. John heard the weight distribution of the sofa shift as Sherlock leaned back, mobile in hand.

            Sherlock’s words were softer, but just discernible enough for someone who had remembered them all anyway, whose brain had been copying down every detail of this moment as fast as it could, still coming down from running double-time at the pool. “You are clearly shaken,” Sherlock was saying, “and understandably so.” John heard himself take half a step, shifting his weight off his bad leg. “Ideally, we should then minimize sudden movements and noises— _including_ those from your mobile.”

            “And yours?” John snapped right back.

            There was quiet as Sherlock took both of the phones, muted them, and stuffed them beneath the sofa cushions.

            Finally, John heard himself ask, “So you’re not at all affected by this, then?” Feet shuffled lightly against the floor and a different spot creaked, the table which John had tried to sit on.

            “John, you—”

            “Right, who am I kidding, of course you are.” He let the rest of his weight bear down on the table. “I get it. I know. I saw.”

            _You didn’t, though, did you?_ John thought. _You could hardly even entertain the idea of having feelings about him then, let alone begin to see if he felt the same way about you as you’re gonna realize you feel soon enough. Christ, Watson, what if he does feel that way right at this instant, and you brushed it off with a bloody ‘I know.’_ As if, John thought, he would get to the rooftop and save Sherlock and say, “You have no idea what I went through to do this,” and Sherlock would say back, “I know,” like he _knew,_ like he had any idea of the thousand ways that John’s chest had been rent since last June or the countless ways John had almost died trying to kill Moriarty to make sure Sherlock lived, like he could simply glance at John and comprehend exactly how he felt.

             “But,” John heard himself continue, “is it really necessary to keep me from telling Sarah I’m fine? I think I can manage a quiet little ‘beep,’ Sherlock.”

            “Not necessary. And still you gave your phone to me.”

            He did, didn’t he? Handed it right over, rather than keeping it long enough to send his message to Sarah. It had been difficult to comprehend at the time, still was, how both she and Sherlock could simultaneously be a part of the world; it was like returning home to London after war and having a perfectly livable flatshare and a hundred different chances at jobs and having to relearn to discern things that were not about living, and dying, but rather about celebrities and scandals and Tube stations being closed. So he had had the chance, to send a little text, to type out a few words, but he didn’t, because he was fresh home from life-or-death and the only thing that was really important in that moment was Sherlock.

            “Yeah—well…well. Usually you have a reason,” he heard himself fight back halfheartedly.

            “I can see this will soon be going in circles.” The floor beneath the sofa creaked a little. “Kindly shut up. I need to think.”

            “About what—Moriarty?” John’s voice got louder; he could feel his foot unconsciously stomp against the ground. “Leave it, Sherlock.”

            “Doesn’t deciphering his next move strike you as the most important thing right now, John?” he heard Sherlock snap out. “He could hurt y—” John’s heart stuttered. “He could do something incredibly…destructive.”

            _He could do, couldn’t he?_

“And he won’t be doing it tonight.” And Jesus, _Jesus_ , maybe he should have just let Sherlock have that think. Maybe he should have gone out for some air. Maybe he should have come down here, maybe, if it was how things went, he would have seen himself down here and he could tell himself, _Kill Moriarty now, John, you can do it, I can’t but you can._ He could tell himself, _The call about Mrs. Hudson is fake, just remember that, just remember that in a year and a couple months, all right?_ He could tell himself, _Go up there and hold him tight and close, because you have no bloody idea how precious he is to you. In fact, let me. Please._

“So what do you propose, then, as a more worthy use of my time?”

            And John knew he ought to find it cold, and cruel, and heartless for Sherlock to say it that way, but bloody fucking _hell_ that wasn’t how Sherlock meant it, was it? What he meant wasn’t that no one but Moriarty was worth his time; what he meant was that nothing but _saving John_ was worth his time. But he had said something so heartless, so caring, with just the littlest upward quirk of his mouth and so John could leave it there, could take it as a joke, and rather than suggesting anything else, he said,

            “I think it would be of therapeutic value for you to insult a spy movie or two.”

            _And it was perfect,_ John thought. _What else would you have said? ‘Talk to me’? No, god no. It went just the way it had to and the only way it could’ve done. Don’t kick yourself, Watson._

“Preferably one you’re fond of, for the additional therapeutic value of watching you try to defend it.”

            John felt his eyes sting at the exchange, at that it could have happened any other time, that the rush of danger and bombs and criminal masterminds was so seamlessly a part of their relationship that while he was certain they were both quietly reflecting on it for days after, within an hour their conversation had gone right back to the way it always had been. Well, nearly.

            “Of course.” John heard himself stand up, remembered using the sofa as support, remembered Sherlock watching John as he pulled himself up, eyes fixed on John’s hand near his face.

            “John.” It was almost too quiet to discern from the still night air.

            “Hm?”

            “I recall reading somewhere that physical proximity to a familiar human being can also be of assistance in recovery from trauma.” Sherlock’s weight shifted position on the sofa as he moved to make room for John. “I’ve been meaning to test its applicability to…”

            “Yeah, yeah, budge up.” The floor creaked as John’s entire weight collapsed onto the sofa beside Sherlock.

            John felt himself tense up at the brief silence between them, felt it coming before he heard it, so soft that if every hair on his body hadn’t been standing to pick up the signal, if the vent hadn’t been just above his head, if his ear hadn’t been pressed to the wall, he might have thought the was imagining it.

             “John?”

            He’d glanced over and then looked back to the films again, hadn’t bloody stared right into that man’s eyes to hear what he had to say, not knowing or being afraid to know that it was probably, _probably_ something meaningful, probably—

             “I wanted to…say…”

            John’s mind rushed to fill in the blank, whirring through every possibility he’d ever considered before and then some,

            _Thank you,_

or

            _I would appreciate it if you avoided being kidnapped in the future,_

or

            _I told you I’d try to stop it from happening and I didn’t and I’m sorry,_

or

            _Why did you do it?_

or

            _Why won’t you look at me?_

or

            _You are the best friend I have ever had,_

or maybe

            or maybe

            _I love you._

            “I know,” John interrupted. “You think James Bond is a complete idiot.”

            And Sherlock was quiet but John knew it was true, knew it had to, _had_ to be what he would mean even if it wasn’t what he was going to say, knew that somewhere even if Sherlock would never use the word that’s what it was, and if he never called it that it didn’t matter a single bit, because words or not there was no way to deny that even if the extent of what John was was _flatmate_ or _friend,_ whatever John was to Sherlock, Sherlock _loved_ him. He had to do, had been saying it with every little twitch of his mouth and flicker of his eyes toward John and soft and distant smile when he didn’t know that one day John would be peering on from a distance to see it. Maybe it was friendship; maybe it was that and more besides. Whatever it was, it was fine. It was all fine. It was the greatest friendship, the strongest attachment John had ever had to another human being.

            And bloody fucking hell if he wasn’t going to go to the ends of the Earth and of time itself to save it.

            _It may be the end of yourself, too_ , John thought.

            And what reared up was the same part of him that hadn’t given a damn, at the time, what Sherlock was going to do with the information that Irene was alive. Whether it was going to be something that made John angry or not, what had mattered then was that Sherlock be _happy_ , and what mattered now was that Sherlock be _alive_.

            _There’s still something you have left to do, though._ John reached into his pocket and felt the receipt that Mary had seen and put back there after seeing it, after using it, of all things, as proof that what John had said was true. _Before you go and save him, you have a piece of sheet music to move._

 

 

 

John peered carefully around the corner before approaching the door to 221B and entering as quietly as possible, using the hand not holding the key to muffle the sound of the lock as much as he could. Tomorrow he’d be returning here in broad daylight, if only for a few minutes only to turn back around again at the realization that Mrs. Hudson was fine and something was very _wrong._ He’d go unchased then, so he doubted there was much surveillance on the place now.

            They would both be out by now, keeping a low profile at Bart’s while Sherlock puzzled out whatever Sherlock had been puzzling out before he—before he jumped. Had he already known what he was going to do? Had Moriarty pushed him into it, or was it something else? Was it just too much for Sherlock, and he…? But no, it had to have something to do with Moriarty.

            That didn’t matter now, though. In just a few short hours, John would put an end to that. He’d stop Sherlock, he’d stop him from jumping just like he’d saved him from his overdose years or days before. Everything would be better again, everything would be right, and he could _ask_ —if he had the heart to—what Sherlock had been thinking in the minutes before John left thinking Mrs. Hudson had been injured.

            That’s when John would come in, too: right after he left. He, John-from-the-past, would leave the room full of anger and betrayal and turn the corner and he, John-from-the-future, John-right-now, would come in, act like he forgot something, and, if it came to it, tie Sherlock down and lock him in the room and hunt Moriarty down and kill him then, because surely then, surely _then,_ Moriarty was meant to die. If he wasn’t, well—he and Sherlock would make an escape and stay safe until that moment.

            There was always a chance it wouldn’t work—that something would go horribly wrong, as it had done before. There was always the chance that Moriarty would kill him, that whatever he did to Sherlock, he’d do to John instead, to torture Sherlock further. There was a chance neither of them would make it. There were a thousand other ways for this to turn out. But just in case it involved John dying and Sherlock making it (which would be _fine_ , it would, because Sherlock was one of a kind, and because John feared trying to escape the spiraling nightmare of knowing for certain that he would never see Sherlock alive again)—just in case Sherlock made it and John didn’t, John wanted to say _something_. It felt…dishonest…otherwise. He pondered it while he moved over to Sherlock’s haphazardly organized selection of sheet music, careful not to disturb anything else on his way. He’d have to leave a…some kind of a note for Sherlock. Enough to tell him what John had been up to, that John had set out to save his life. Enough to…to make sure that Sherlock knew just why, and to make sure that Sherlock knew that he was so important to John.

            Sherlock at least had all of his own pieces in one stack and others in another. John shuffled gently through Sherlock’s own compositions for the one he’d written for Irene. It wasn’t titled as such; John only recognized it as the pages that had laid about the flat in-progress during that time, and by what he recalled about reading music from his days as a clarinet player in school. He pulled it out carefully and then stacked it in among the other pieces, making sure the piles changed as little as possible. There: Mrs. Hudson would donate those and be none the wiser about the original one slipped in, Mary would find it, and then…and then she would find John, and save him, just a little bit.

            _Just like I’m going to save Sherlock._

            And moving the music worked, hadn’t it? This was different from trying to kill Moriarty somehow, because he had, at least, done this.

            _Yeah,_ he thought to himself, _but you already knew it was gonna work._ Mary had already found it when he met her; it was as if John’s moving the music were built into the world already. _But you never saw Sherlock live_ , he thought. _If you saved him, if you’re going to save him, won’t you have seen it?_ John shook his head. He saved Sherlock once in the past—from his overdose. _You knew he was going to survive that, too. You met him, after all._ He rubbed at his forehead. He would just have to try it; he would just have to hope for the best. Saving Sherlock was good and right and if there were any justice in the universe, time or fate or whatever this was would allow him to do it.

            John took in a slow and deep breath and glanced around the flat. He found an old research paper he’d printed out to read and flipped it over. There wasn’t really a set form for notes like this, was there? He exhaled and found his breath was shaky.

            _Sherlock,_

he started it, lest there be any doubt as to its intended recipient. He thought of Sherlock’s phone call, of his tearful _John,_ and shook his head.

_I don’t know what’s going to happen, but trust me, if you’re reading this and I’m not there it still ended better than it would have._

John paused. If he was going to tell Sherlock what he’d done—and he was—he’d have to put this where no one else would find it. That included himself, for at least the months where he’d occasionally visited the flat. Otherwise, he’d probably scare himself away from time traveling…or…or who knew what else would happen.

            _I know because I was there the first time it happened. You jumped off a building and died and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop you._

            He swallowed.

            _So whatever happened, if you’re reading this, it’s better this way. It means you lived._

            _This sounds strange, but I suspect you’ll believe me: I time traveled to change it._

            Sherlock would believe it, right? That this was really from John, that he’d really done this— _once you eliminate the impossible,_ and all that?

            _It was a case I got after you died, a bloke who disappeared with a time machine and his friend wanted me to find him. We met in your past—do you remember any of it? It’s fine if you don’t. Maybe that’s not how time-travel works, maybe that’s a parallel universe or something, I don’t know. But I didn’t want to make us not meet later. I tried to make sure you wouldn’t remember me. Now that I’m gone, though, I guess it’s okay if you do._

He licked his lips and then bit the end of the pen, closing his eyes. God, but he hoped that he’d make it, that this damn thing would be unnecessary. _You’d do it, though, Watson,_ he thought to himself. _You know if it comes down to it, you’re going to die to save him. You’ve tried it about a hundred times already since you’ve known him._ This wasn’t any different. This was _completely_ different—it wasn’t a sudden gun drawn on them, it wasn’t being strapped up with bombs. He was coming into this one ready and knowing and prepared to—to do whatever he had to. Whatever he had to do, to save Sherlock.

            _I wanted to make sure you knew. I mean, I wanted to make sure you knew_ that _, for one. But I also want you to know that I_

            John huffed a heavy breath from his nose.

_But I also want you to know that I never got to tell you how much I care about you. I’m sure you deduced it, but there it is straight from me._

_I didn’t really know it at the time, but I do now, and if I’m not around to tell you in person, well, then I’m sorry for being too late. Don’t let it bother you, if it does. I just wanted to be honest._

He swallowed again and lifted his hand from the paper, watched it twitch a little.

_Thank you for being you. You’re something else, Sherlock. Don’t do anything too stupid while I’m gone, got it? No drugs or running around more recklessly than strictly necessary_

The corner of John’s mouth lifted.

_(I know you’ll do it anyway). And definitely_

The corner fell.

_no jumping off buildings. I think I could probably strangle you once you get to the afterlife, so let’s not make it unpleasant, all right?_

_Of course if I’ve written this all for nothing and I’m actually fine and you’ve found it in the bin or whatever, then please delete it from your mind so I can tell you in person and see your face when I do—if I haven’t already._

_Thank you. For everything. Next time I see you I’ll be stopping you from going up to that damned rooftop, and let’s hope that’s not the last time I see you._

            _L_

John started to write, started to write it, started to—but then he scratched it out. That was no way to tell Sherlock how he felt, to just dump the word on him like that. Either the man deduced it from the letter—and, probably, he would—or he didn’t, and he deserved to live in peace, without that hanging over his head.This wasn’t the place and it wasn’t the time, and, John thought, he should probably just end the thing simply.

_~~L~~_

_John_

            He folded the sheet up into sixteenths and pressed down the edges. Where to put it where he wouldn’t see it for the next eight months, if for some reason he didn’t come home right after this and throw the thing away?

            Ah—the skull. He hadn’t so much as touched the skull after Sherlock died; he’d only ever spoke to it. If John didn’t make it, Sherlock would eventually look there. John tucked it inside the cavity inside the skull where it would only be visible to someone who picked the thing up and looked inside it, and then glanced around the flat. Right now, he and Sherlock still lived here, or had so recently that they may as well have. There was a mug of tea in the kitchen that had been abandoned when the police had come to arrest Sherlock, already gathering rings around the inside as the tea evaporated. Sherlock’s microscope was still here; John’s other favorite jacket still hung over the back of one of the chairs. John felt his throat tighten, reached out to, lightly, just for a moment, touch Sherlock’s chair, as if he could still feel warmth in it from hours and hours ago. In Sherlock’s room, there was an apple slowly deteriorating. John closed his eyes and steeped in it for just a minute, breathed in 221B in case he never got the chance to do so again; he breathed in the only just fading scents of himself and Sherlock living here, their shampoo and Sherlock’s experiments and John’s tea.

            He was ready—he was as ready as he would ever be.

            John made his way back to the time machine, and set the date: June 15, 2011.


	19. The Pavement is Aching (III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was it—he would finally be coming face-to-face with Sherlock, with a Sherlock who knew him, who would _know_ who he was and that he didn’t belong there. He would finally see that spark of recognition in Sherlock’s eye, directed at _him_ , not past-him, not a random bloke who happened to stop for a chat, but at _now_ -John. _God,_ he thought, as he gripped the handle of the door to the lab. He’d missed it, even more than he thought. But he was ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liiiive! Really did not mean to wait this long between chapters. It is very much my goal to finish this story as much before S3 as possible (if possible). There are only 2-3 chapters left after this one...
> 
> By the way, thank you to your all for your kind comments and support. I feel so bad that I have not taken the time to go through and respond to each of you, but I very much appreciate your comments. They help me get my butt going on writing these chapters.
> 
> *gulp* Well...enjoy?

           John disembarked from the time machine with purpose. He’d given himself enough time to get to St. Bart’s, but not so much he might get caught hanging about more than necessary once he was there. As he rehydrated himself a bit he formed a plan that, John realized, he had been working on for some time in the back of his mind, as if he had always known it would come to this eventually.

            He knew he had a very limited window in which to stop Sherlock. It would have to be after then-John left to check on Mrs. Hudson, but before whenever Sherlock had climbed up to the roof of the hospital—whenever exactly that was. John knew his best bet would be to wait and enter the room as quickly as possible after his past self left, just in case it had been mere moments later that Sherlock did—whatever exactly he did, whatever exactly compelled him to find himself up there, on the ledge—

            John remembered that he had taken the southern stairwell down, too impatient to wait for the lift, so he would wait at the base of the one on the other side, where he would have the perfect view of himself exiting the building. The moment he saw himself, he could dash up, hopefully with better luck than his last desperate scaling of a staircase, and over to the lab Sherlock was in. He could act like he had just returned, if he had to; but Sherlock would probably know the difference anyway, wouldn’t he? Even if John dressed exactly the same, acted as if he’d forgotten something…Sherlock would know something was wrong, would see nearly a year’s worth of mourning, seen the most recent weeks’ worth of sparse eating and repeated dehydration and travel, and somehow use that one thread to deduce that the improbable had happened, that somehow another John had come and taken the last one’s place.

            After that, after he came in and found Sherlock, he would have to play it by ear. Hopefully, he could simply talk him out of going up there; hopefully, something could still be done about it. John could distract him: Start offering daft advice, start making incorrect statements about the properties of various types of tobacco ash that Sherlock would have to correct. Corner him, tell him: _I know what you’re about to do and you can’t or I’ll deck you in the face._ Tell him: _I know what you’re about to do and you can’t. Tell me how to help you. I’ll do anything; I’ve already done everything I can._ Tell him: _I know what you’re about to do and you can’t. I love you._

            John could tell him about the time machine, if he had to, if it didn’t break time and space to speak of it. If Sherlock could deduce anyway where John had come from, that he was not the same John that just walked out, then would he not have to believe it? John could show it all to him, the receipts, the map his younger self had drawn, _Do you remember? Do you remember this? It’s your writing._ Even if Sherlock didn’t remember then surely he would change his mind, surely he would not go to the roof and fall, surely Sherlock would seize the opportunity to see this time machine for himself, to pick at the threads of where this John had come from. John could swear to answer all of Sherlock’s questions only once they were safe back at 221B, after they rid the world of Moriarty for good. Sherlock wouldn’t say no to that. It almost, John thought, tore at the fabric of space and time to _imagine_ him choosing death over such a fantastic mystery.

            He was cautious as he made his way to St. Bart’s; he and Sherlock were fugitives, after all. Still, the anonymity of the Underground allowed him reasonably safe passage most of the way. Certainly if Mycroft were watching over the CCTV he would see John; or certainly if he looked later, he would find evidence of what had happened—whatever wound up happening. But, John thought, did he have a reason to be paying attention right now? Did Mycroft have any idea what he’d driven his brother to do? John had warned him, after all. But still, for some reason, Mycroft let Jim have all those dangerous little secrets.

            John entered the building and made his way over to the stairwell opposite the one that he would be using later. From there, there was a small window through which he would be able to see himself leave and jog along the pavement for a taxi. He still had about half an hour to wait, though; hopefully no one who knew him would be using these stairs.

            “Oh!” he heard a familiar voice blurt right behind him after a few minutes of silently gazing out the window, the world disconcertingly peaceful around him. John froze, forcing down the impulse to turn around. “John!”

            Well that about did it, didn’t it? He turned hesitantly. “’Lo, Molly.”John frantically tried to remember the last time Molly had been in the same room as he and Sherlock before this; had she just left and come down to see another John here? No, it had been at least a few hours…yes, definitely. She had been in once or twice for a few minutes, but for once that day had not been hovering around Sherlock for every chance to assist him.

            “Just, um…? Looking out the window?” She stepped up to stand beside John, fidgeting with the file folder she was holding rather than looking at him.

            “Yeah,” he started, trying to think of why she would find him out here and not hiding with Sherlock. “Sherlock was being a…” _a git,_ the rest of the sentence was supposed to go, but John felt his throat close up, felt a shiver of guilt that that was the first excuse he’d been able to come up with. _Just leave, Molly…_ He still had another good quarter hour before he had to be worried about her glancing out and seeing then-John too.

            “…a bit…Sherlock?” Molly finished. John swallowed and nodded. “Have you and him, uhm, figured anything out? About how to set the record straight?”

            “Not yet.”

            “Oh. Well.” She bit her lip and finally looked at John, but only for a moment. She hugged her file folder tight to her and finally glanced away from John to look at it. Molly turned and took a step away. “I have some, um… Papers,” she explained, nodding toward her file. “Good luck!”

            “Ta,” John said absently as she scurried off. He tapped his fingers on the sill and remembered doing the same upstairs on the counter in the lab not long before Sherlock’s…before John had had to leave to check on Mrs. Hudson. That had been some sort of a revelation for Sherlock, the way he had mimicked John, eyes narrowed and thoughtful. God knew what it meant, though.

            John resumed his impatient waiting, relatively unperturbed by the few passers-by.

            Right now he was upstairs, maybe getting the call, hearing the horrible news about the shooting, about Mrs. Hudson, storming back in to tell Sherlock, storming back out at Sherlock’s cold response and turning to Sherlock and saying it, the most horrible thing, saying: _You machine._ He closed his eyes for a moment to gather himself, but then forced them open to resume watch.

Just on cue, he watched himself sprint down the pavement just outside the hospital, waving to hail a taxi. Taking a deep breath, he turned to head up the stairs.

            There was nothing saying it couldn’t happen this time just like it had the last, with him taking a dive over the railing against his own will—and if he did, maybe he wouldn’t make it. It wasn’t as if he was set on killing anyone this time, however, so perhaps things would be different. John briskly scaled the stairs, staying as far from the railing as possible.

            “Excuse me!” someone called out, flustered, as he sprinted down the stairwell, followed shortly by two more people carrying a third, unconscious individual. “Sir!”

            John hugged the side of the stairwell, but just as he did, one of the people carrying the unconscious man lost his grip and dropped his shoulders, the man’s head smacking against the stairs as his torso dropped. “Ah, bugger,” he muttered to himself, and swept in to scoop up the torso and hold it up for the man who’d been in charge of it to secure a good grip once more. It was certainly a solid enough smack to have done further damage to the man, and if he hadn’t been unconscious due to head trauma before he probably was now.

            _No time for that, Watson,_ John told himself.

            “Do you work here?” the woman holding the legs asked John.

            His brows furrowed a little. Tricky answer, that one. “IT,” he finally said.

            “Oh,” she said. “Never mind, then.”

            “Looks pretty nasty though,” John finally continued, trying to maneuver around them and up the stairs. “He probably needs some help.”

            And without looking back or even listening to their reply, John sprinted headlong the rest of the way up the stairs and down the hallway to the lab into which he and Sherlock had effectively barricaded themselves, hoping Sherlock hadn’t left the room immediately after John had.

            This was it—he would finally be coming face-to-face with Sherlock, with a Sherlock who knew him, who would _know_ who he was and that he didn’t belong there. He would finally see that spark of recognition in Sherlock’s eye, directed at _him_ , not past-him, not a random bloke who happened to stop for a chat, but at _now_ -John. _God_ , he thought, as he gripped the handle. He’d missed it, even more than he thought. But he was ready.

            John swung the door open.

            There was no one there.

            _Shit._ Sherlock had already gone up. John would never make it up the stairs on time—he had no idea when Sherlock had left the room; it could have been an entire minute ago, while John was holding up the top half of some random unconscious body. He could already be up there now—how long had he been on the roof before John showed up?

            _Oh!_ The lift—John could take the lift to the roof, like he had done before. He shut the door to the lab and dashed a bit farther down the hallway and pressed the _up_ button urgently, several times just to be sure, half expecting that he’d start coughing up blood any minute. The door opened and John smashed his thumb into the appropriate floor while tapping the _close doors_ button. _Get up there, get up there, get up there…_ He couldn’t keep from pacing even for the short trip of several floors, it’d only be a few more seconds and—

            The lights flickered off.

            _Bloody fucking hell._

            The lift decelerated, and John’s surroundings whirred down to silence.

            He was stuck.

            He banged his fist against the side—as if that would help. A heavy weight in the pit of John’s stomach told him what he already knew: it was just like when he’d tried to hunt down Moriarty. The universe, time, _something_ was working against him.

            _Well, sod that,_ John thought. If that’s what it was going to do, he’d put it to the test. All he had to do was save Sherlock, whether his lungs stayed intact or not in the process. He took out his mobile and used it as a light to inspect his surroundings. He tried the _open door_ button, but all remained still. There was an emergency button, but who knew if it would work—and even if it did, this wasn’t the most important lift in the hospital; no one would be dying here anytime soon, and with a power outage like this, there was more to tend to. But it was worth a shot, for Sherlock.

            John smacked his fist onto the button. “Hello?” he shouted into the space of the lift. “Can anyone hear me?”

            There was a faint crackling from a speaker right beside the button.

            “My friend is on the rooftop,” John continued, speaking with his voice raised in case the crackling was interference. “He’s—he’s not—he’s not thinking right, he’s going to…” he swallowed and forced the rest out, “…he’s going to jump off. _Please_ , you have to save him.”

            There was no response, not even a crackle this time.

            He wedged his fingers as best as he could into the cracks of the lift door and tried to pry it open, but it held resilient. John shouted anyway, still pulling at it: “Somebody, _get to the rooftop!_ ” The sodding thing was sealed shut. There was no way anyone had heard him.

            “ _Shit_ ,” he muttered to himself. Was this it, then? He’d be stuck here, left in silence, every bit as far from Sherlock as he had been before, but now _knowing_ what was going to happen. The dim glow of his mobile illuminated his hand as he raised it to his face, shaking, and then ran it through his hair.

            He had never felt more alone than at this moment.

            And then his mobile rang.

            Hope swelled in to take the place of the burning. “Sherlock!” he nearly shouted into the phone, “I know what you’re about to do, but _don’t_ , you need to listen, _don’t, don’t, don’t_ , Sherlock, I—Sherlock—” something, something, anything to say to keep him from it, fuck propriety, fuck _not good_ , fuck _I don’t know_ —“Sherlock, I love you. _I love you._ Please don’t.”

            “John.

            “Turn around and walk back the way you came.”

            _Oh._ Oh god. _No, no, no._ “Sherlock! Can you hear me?” John nearly yelled, and his voice cracked as he continued, “ _Can you hear me at all?_ ”

            “Just do as I ask.”

            _No._ Sherlock’s voice—so desperate, so—so—god. _God_. So panicked, so nearly like John himself right now, saying those same things, those same words, in that same tone—was this—it was, it was the same phone call again, just come to now-John’s phone. But John’s mobile’s microphone had broken when he’d tried calling Moriarty; he couldn’t speak back. “Sherlock,” John muttered.

            “Please.

            “Stop there.”

            _No_ , John thought. He pressed the button for speakerphone on his mobile and held it between his teeth to continue lighting the lift.

            “Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.”

            John’s heart raced at the memory of the sight, and he checked the roof for an escape hatch. He could probably rip out the lights and get out that way.

            _Probably._

            Or maybe it was just like Andrew said, and he couldn’t change a _damn_ thing; maybe he should have listened, rather than getting himself trapped here, listening to Sherlock’s last words alone in the dark in this tiny prison cell that he could do nothing but struggle to escape.

            “I, I…I can’t come down, so…we’ll just have to do it like this.”

            _And now I know what’s going on, Sherlock, and you lied, you_ lied, _because you_ could _come down and you_ did _come down and if you had even a fraction of—_

“An apology.

            “It’s all true.”

            It still didn’t make sense, after all the time to think about it, and puzzle over it, and ignore it, and be trapped into haunting thoughts of it again. Why ever would Sherlock have thought John would believe this? Why would he _do_ it? To make the loss easier, was that it? Because like _hell_ had it done that.

            John climbed up onto the handrail on the side of the lift, bracing himself against the wall with one arm so that he could reach for the lights and ceiling tiles with the other.

            “Everything they said about me. I…invented…Moriarty.”

            “ _No,_ ” John said forcefully at his mobile as he held it with his teeth. “ _No,_ you didn’t, Sherlock.” And why did he even bother to say—John would know, John would know better than anyone, and Sherlock knew John knew—and after the pool, at night, the Bond movies, the almost-confession of god-knows-what, none of that was fake, none of that was—it was one of the sincerest and the truest moments in John’s life, and Sherlock knew, and still he—

            “I’m a fake.”

            _“No!_ ” John yelled. _Sherlock. Sherlock, you are the antithesis of fake. You are the truest…the truest person ever to live._ He straightened his legs and arm out to shove one of the ceiling tiles and breathed out heavily when it and the attached light fixtures shifted. _Thank god._

“The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly—in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you—that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”

            That had to mean something, it _had_ to, but what—but—and of course John never had, god, no, and Sherlock had to know, had to know he never would, because Sherlock _knew_ John, knew him like nobody else, brought him to the battlefield and cured his limp and brought him back to life all in one night, and performed small miracles every day after that, and he _knew_ John and he had to know, _had_ to know, that John would sooner rot away alone than speak a single word about Sherlock being a fake. “Shut up, Sherlock.” _You’ve said enough—stop and—turn around and—can’t you—_

John sized up his options. If he hopped off the rail from his current position, he might be able to catch the beam that had been holding the tile in place. If he was lucky, he could catch it with enough control to pull himself up onto the top of the lift. John took a deep breath and steeled himself, drew upon the strength of muscles that had deteriorated somewhat over months not dashing like a madman around London, climbing impromptu ladders and shoving against doors and holding his gun steady for minutes at a time if that was what was called for.

            “Nobody could be that clever.”

            _You could._ John’s breath hitched and his eyes burned at the little laugh, the horrible little laugh that Sherlock let out that he hadn’t properly heard before, down in the noise on the street, that was crystal clear here in the silence of the lift.

“I researched you.”

            _Not likely._ He hadn’t had any way of knowing John’s name beforehand; _Mycroft,_ of all people, certainly wouldn’t have told him. He wouldn’t have felt it—the first moment he locked eyes with Sherlock, _really_ locked eyes with him, when he handed over his mobile, if Sherlock had already known about him, he would have been dull, the drilling pressure of Sherlock’s eyes would not have sent an electrifying jolt down John’s spine because John would be _boring_ and a known quantity and nothing special, and Sherlock would not have rattled off his deductions, the show-off, with such _energy_ and such _need_ to be told he was right, by John and John alone.

            John bent his knees, took one last breath, and leapt.

            “Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you.”

            His hands caught the bar and he curled his midsection up to keep himself from swinging off it, threw one elbow over the bar and then the other, lifted his shoulders and hung with his legs dangling out the bottom of the hole, but his head and his shoulders, at least, thank god, through.

            _Yeah, Sherlock—you wasted your time looking up a stranger’s alcoholic sister’s ex-wife just so you could have a flatmate you didn’t really need. Sure._

“It’s a trick. It’s just a magic trick.”

            “No!” John shouted at his mobile. _Hang up, Sherlock. Get down from there._

“No! Stay exactly where you are!

            “Don’t move.”

            _Like hell I’m not moving._ With one mighty pull John slung the rest of his body up onto the top of the lift, took his mobile out of his mouth to inspect the area. So the lift had stopped halfway between floors.

“Keep your eyes fixed on me.

            “Please, will you do this for me?”

            And even now, if he could, John would do it, because—it was the one thing he could still do for Sherlock, the one request Sherlock had made; for whatever small comfort it was to a dead man, John would still watch every painful moment of it.

            He stepped toward the outer doors and found a lever there. He pulled it and then wedged his fingers between the two halves of the door and hauled them open. “ _Somebody get to the rooftop!_ ” he screamed into the hallway whose floor was practically at his eye level.

            It was empty.

            “This phone call, it’s um…it’s my note.

            “It’s what people do, don’t they?

            “Leave a note?”

            _I left you a note, Sherlock, and you’re not fucking going to live to read it. I left you a note, Sherlock, because I was going to go up there, and if I had to, I was going to die for you. All right? I was going to jump for you, if it came to it, if Moriarty was up there making you do it, if Moriarty made me do it instead, if I had to catch a bullet for you, all right, I would have done it._

And John knew what was coming, and he hefted himself up onto the next floor from the lift roof and sprinted to the stairs anyway, because it couldn’t end like this, couldn’t end, couldn’t—

“Goodbye, John.”

            —he could run down there, he could still say goodbye, he could get to Sherlock in time, he could hold Sherlock’s head during his last breath, he could whisper the truth in his ear, he could—

            The speakers of John’s mobile rattled with the sound of Sherlock’s phone clattering onto the hospital roof, and he could hear the faintest flapping of a coat, and the sound disappeared, and a tinny voice screamed, “ _Sherlock!_ ”

            —And whatever he’d been holding inside him to keep his chest from collapsing was sucked away, and he was cracked and broken and smashing his right arm against the wall and then quickly retreating, getting out, getting away, being gone from this place before it could tear him apart even more, because Sherlock Holmes was falling and Sherlock Holmes was dying and Sherlock Holmes was crumpling into the sidewalk outside St. Bart’s and today was the wrongest day in John Watson’s world and with all the powers of space and time and knowing and feeling and timing and being, nothing, _nothing_ could stop it from happening, not even John Watson, _not even John could save Sherlock_.


	20. The Pavement is Aching (IV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What did John have left to do? It was done. He was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaagh, I am so nervous, this is sort of a climactic thing, y'know? I really really hope you all will like it; it is actually quite different from what I originally envisioned.
> 
> My eternal gratitude to [Morwen_Eledhwen](archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) for helping me whip this chapter at least a bit more into shape...and for overall being, like, the best beta ever.
> 
> Take note that there is indeed one more chapter left! I wouldn't leave you hanging like that, haha.
> 
> Oh god oh god, I hope you guys find this string of events satisfying. (And by the way, to those of you who were able to attend, I hope 221BCon was lovely! I really wish I could have attended. I did at least spend some quality time reflecting on my time there last year and thinking of how much I hope to go next year. And I haven't forgotten, I do still intend to scan in John's notebook and receipts and so on that I brought with me then!) I have been crazy busy finishing up my Master's thesis, so...I can only hope that my writing hasn't deteriorated too much. Whew!

            He jogged down hallways and stairs until he was out of the hospital, past the already mostly cleared pavement, the only sign of anything unusual the blood left there and John Watson himself standing, staring at the rooftop, waiting for everything to be right again. He saw himself pacing a distraught circle near the blood but pointedly not looking at it.

            John continued past himself, refusing to remember the rest of that day.

            There was nothing left to be done. Sherlock was…

            He was gone for good.

            John felt his throat constrict at the thought, just as it had done the first time he’d tried to accept it, tried to move on in the grieving process. Not that he had ever accepted— _would_ ever accept—Sherlock’s confession, Sherlock’s lies. No, they made even less sense this time around.

            What did John have left to do? It was done. He was done. It was time to go home. Time to go back to 2012, back to February, the clearing of the early morning storm that he had left behind him when he left that rubbish heap. As he clambered down the steps to the Tube station a storm not unlike that one seemed to be blowing in, the wind gaining an extra bite and drizzle falling. By the time he disembarked, it was pouring.

            _Nothing has changed_ , John thought, _not even the sodding weather._ He’d come back in the same conditions in which he’d left.

            John considered getting a taxi to someplace near the Holmes residence, to avoid being completely drenched by the rain—he had enough money, certainly—but when he imagined climbing out of the cab and into the time machine, he felt even his walking pace slow.

            Because what would he do then? He’d punch in the date, he’d travel back to just after he’d left, and then he’d…he’d go tell Brian what had happened with Andrew; he’d go tell Mary that he was home, safe but not sound.

            Maybe she wouldn’t want to hear about it. Mary was strong—god, he hadn’t had any idea just how much before he left, but now, _now_ he knew—but even if he _could_ tell anyone else about everything that happened, he was not sure he would willingly subject her to watching him stutter and pause for minutes at a time.

            Maybe, John thought, even he did not want to think about it again.

            But it was an awfully big thing to just forget.

            John felt his feet squish into the mud beneath the grass on the edge of Mummy Holmes’ garden where he had to diverge from the path toward his machine. He let the mud suck him down, let it further slow his step.

            There were not many ways to just put those things away.

            Maybe, if he were Sherlock, he could delete the memories. But he wasn’t Sherlock; if he pushed them out of his conscious mind, they would erupt beside nightmares of war trauma, and he would wake up abruptly at the flash of young Jim’s eyes, at the stabbing feeling of his organs rebelling against him. He would have recurring nightmares of falling down stairs and being trapped in lifts. He would wake up sheeted in sweat with no choice but to think about it, and he would slowly come down knowing only the ghost of comfort that there was no way to save Sherlock, had never been any way to save Sherlock, would never be any way to save Sherlock, and even knowing this he would still sit on the edge of his bed, staring at shaking hands, feeling no better for it.

            And god knew that even if it would work, even if he wanted to, there was no therapist in the world that he could see about _this_.

            John shielded his eyes as the wind picked up and blew the rain at a harsh angle, almost parallel to the ground. Bits of leaves tore off of the shrubberies of the garden.

            Maybe right now Mummy Holmes was getting the news. Maybe John should go in and have a cuppa with her, make sure she was doing all right. But he would be shit for emotional comfort. Probably upset her more than it would help her.          

            John realized he had been standing in front of the machine for a good quarter of an hour, wondering what he was left to do. It would be so much easier to, to… His throat closed up again. None of the options before him were good ones.

            He would just have to take it step by step, then.

            John climbed up onto the machine, turning it on and checking to ensure it had enough power to get him back. The rain battering his face and the time machine made the power readout nearly indiscernible, but he’d left with over half, and the thing did not seem to lose much power in disuse. He entered in the date he’d left from, but an hour later, just to avoid bumping into himself, or any other possible paradoxes. John wished the thing made some sort of prominent beeping noise at each change to the date and time so that he could be sure his button pressing got through; his fingers slipped around in the rain. As John secured his laptop bag around himself he realized that he was still stalling.

            It was time to go back.

            The machine whirred as it powered up, and then John left that most horrible of days.

 

 

 

            There was no water waiting for him when he reappeared in Mummy Holmes’ garden, but the trip was short enough that John felt scarcely sicker than he had when he’d left anyway.

            “Right,” he muttered to himself as he reeled out of the seat almost involuntarily, and his voice was still scratchy from all the shouting he’d done before. _Step by step._ Before he did anything else, he should destroy the time machine. That way no one—Brian, Mycroft, John himself—could get up to anything inadvisable in it. He started with what appeared to be the power source. There didn’t seem to be anything he could easily yank out, but he could most likely stomp on the box containing it and somehow disconnect it from the machine. He shoved his foot against the box until it was knocked loose, and John gave it one final stomp to disconnect it. The machine and all its displays powered down.

            This, John thought, he could more easily dismantle and destroy more thoroughly at home. He then moved on to shatter the console, and took pieces of that, too; whatever computer was used in this appeared to be housed beneath the display.

            _Good,_ he thought, shoving some of the extra parts into his laptop bag. _That’s that, then._

            Step by step.

            What was next?

            Next, he should tell Brian what happened to Andrew. Or perhaps he should get back to Mary, who was doubtless waiting for him. But even the thought of trying to explain to either of them what had happened made him feel sicker, and he leaned against the frame of the now-dead time machine to catch his breath and his balance. Now that he was back, the world was exactly back to how it had been; it lacked its extraordinary luster. People here had never peeked back on the childhoods of their friends; people here lived time in one straight line. John had, too, for almost the entirety of his life…but the normalcy was almost disorienting.

            _Like coming back from Afghanistan,_ he thought. That was why he wasn’t ready—that was one of the _many_ reasons he was not ready—to try to become an ordinary, Wednesday-morning British man, just now. It needed to happen slowly; not Sherlock suddenly everywhere he turned and then completely gone forever. _I need to go back to 221B_. Like reading a book, front cover to back cover…he would go back to his thinking place, to see if he could close this chapter, to see if he could manage the idea of one last final proper mourning of Sherlock.

            Anyway, there was the matter of that note. If no one was going to read it anyway, he needed to fetch it and make sure it was binned.

            _Step by step._

 

 

 

            John unlocked the flat quietly, not wanting to disturb Mrs. Hudson in this still obscenely early morning hour. His trip back had taken a while, partly because he occasionally paused at a shop he hadn’t remembered from before, pondered an out-of-commission Underground station he thought hadn’t been set to be closed until next month. _I’ve been in the past too long,_ he thought. _Can’t even remember what things looked like when I left._ He needed a young Sherlock to walk him along his route back, to give him a tour of what was there now, of what had been there before, of what he suspected would be there next, of what brilliant deductions he had made there. He stared for some moments at a spot that he was certain used to house a café. He had eaten at lots of places that no longer existed during his time away. John would not be surprised if Sherlock could rattle off the list of previous owners of every building in Westminster for the past hundred or so years.

            As he stepped into 221B, John caught a whiff of tea and froze in his steps.

            “Oh,” he muttered to himself. Right. He’d made tea the night before, a cup for him and a cup for Sherlock. There were two cups on the sitting room table right there, one full and one empty.

John’s brows knitted a bit. _Not where I left them,_ he thought to himself, and looked around at the rest of the flat’s sitting room. It was quite distinctly unlike the way he had left it; many areas that had accumulated dust, untouched by John for months, were clear of it.

            _Or it hasn’t gotten there yet,_ he thought to himself with a jolt of panic. _You’re too early, Watson, did you put in the right month? The right year? It was so sodding rainy, you didn’t even double check, did you? That’s why the shops looked different, that’s why that Tube stop was closed._

            He had to get out—before Sherlock, the Sherlock that clearly still lived here—showed up and caught sight of him and noticed his unusually rain-soaked clothes and lost expression and lost weight and probably fifty-odd other clues that spelled out _not the John you know_. What’s more, if he _himself_ showed up here—god knew what could happen. If it could happen at all, that was—if he hadn’t seen himself whenever this was, whatever time he was in, did that mean he now would not have to worry about running across his past self?

            But John paused for a moment to breathe the place in, now that he was here anyway, and even if only by accident, it was his last chance to experience what this place was like when Sherlock lived in it. He realized with a shudder that he could actually _smell_ the fact that Sherlock lived here—whether it was the faint sting of chemicals that didn’t belong in the kitchen or the cloying aroma of an eyeball that probably didn’t belong where Sherlock left it happily decaying away, or the man himself, John couldn’t tell; probably some of each. He thought of his hallucinations when he’d tested out the apples for belladonna, of how _sure_ he had been that Sherlock’s scent was curling into his nostrils. This wasn’t unlike it; it was a hallucination in its own right—or, he thought, might as well be, once he returned home.

            Of course he’d had to wind up here. Of course he’d had to make it more difficult. How could he leave now? He was home.

            John glanced over the papers on the table; documents relevant to this or that case that Sherlock had left strewn around. He wondered if he would remember them and could use them to place when in time he was, if he took a peek. John leaned down to better read some of the information. _Human trafficking ring,_ he thought, and gently lifted that stack to look at the one beneath it. Pages and pages of reports of missing persons, CCTV images, police records. _Don’t remember this one,_ he thought. Maybe it had never come to any actual legwork, perhaps Sherlock had found whoever was gone, told Lestrade where to arrest the appropriate ringleaders, and never bothered to mention it to John. _Could be one of those weeks when I took on extra hours at work,_ he thought with the smallest tinge of regret that he had ever put anything above the time that he could have spent solving cases with Sherlock. _Come to think of it, when is it?_ He’d completely given up on keeping a regular ( _dull_ ) job within half a year of living with Sherlock; was it possible that he had come back to those first few months in which he had moved in?

            John picked up one of the documents and started searching it for dates. He squinted. _December 2012,_ this one read. He’d left from February, _February 2012._

            He quickly glanced around for more clues. Maybe it was an error. John turned around, assessing his surroundings, and then, with a bit of a smirk at his own cleverness, pulled out his mobile. It would have updated with the current information by now, to be sure, provided he wasn’t _too_ far back in time.

            _9:03am,_ it read. _12 February 2013._

_Oh._

            _Exactly one year too late,_ John thought.

            Except—

            Except Sherlock was here. Sherlock was _clearly_ here, there was no mistake about it. Sherlock was here, busting human trafficking rings, leaving eyeballs sitting about, filling the flat with his presence. He was, apparently, fine, just fine, going about with his life as he presumably had before John knew him—or maybe this was a universe where John never _had_ known him. Maybe that was a cup of tea for someone else who shared this flat with Sherlock.

            John muted his phone and pocketed it quickly.

            _He,_ he thought, and then revised, cautiously, with a perfectly explicable churn of his gut, _they?—might be here right now._

            He took a few breaths, gradually deeper and slower. How, _how_ was it possible? Had he landed in an alternate timeline? Had his actions somehow influenced this one? John walked a circuit around the flat.

            _My letter,_ he realized, seeing it on the table. Coated in a thin sheet of dust, as if Sherlock had read it, left it out and completely forgotten about it. John reached out for a moment, his fingertips almost brushing the edge of the page, and he withdrew and turned around. Behind him had been the bulletin board Sherlock sometimes used when cases got especially tricky to keep track of. Probably he had something about the trafficking ring on here, maybe some locations or key players… John stepped closer.

            Half the board was covered with a map of London, thumbtacks pressed into particular locations and notes written beside them, some connected with different colors of string, in straight lines or following what appeared to be paths of the Underground. John leaned closer. The note labeled with a bold “1” in the corner listed _May 6, 2008._ John’s brows furrowed. Beneath that, _Nervous behavior and unknown landing location indicate first visit. Potentially first time seeing S since previous June._

His eyes darted to “2.” _April 17, 1993._ There was no writing beneath this one by Sherlock’s distinctive hand, but rather the handwriting of Mummy Holmes on another sheet pinned beneath, with a list of dates.

            _Dates I went to,_ John thought. _Dates Sherlock saw me._

            _He knows._

John’s eyes scanned over the rest of the board. Beside the map were a few grouped collections of papers. He recognized some names on one list as being from the paperwork on the possible victims of the trafficking ring. Beside that were a handful of photos of John from what must have been the CCTV, different years and dates written on the bottom corners.

            Underneath those, Sherlock had another section that seemed to be devoted to a note that simply read: _Mycroft?_

            In smaller text beneath it: _Mary?_

And in the corner of the board there were a few scribbles:

            _Internal bleeding?_

            _Clearly distraught_

            _Severe risk-taking_

_Last known to leave 12 June 2012_

            “Sherlock,” John mouthed.

            So Sherlock had been searching for John then—whether this was an alternate universe or not, it was _this_ John he was looking for, the time-traveling one. He turned back around to take in the rest of the flat while he processed the thought. Maybe Sherlock had not gotten on with his life as much as it had seemed. All of the information lying around his flat seemed to be about John. The place was even more of a mess than John was used to, although perhaps only because he was so used to seeing it in the exact same condition every time. Mrs. Hudson’s influence on the place was clear; a tray of mostly untouched food set on the table beside all of Sherlock’s papers, probably dinner from last night; a feather duster rather prominently left on the bookcase as if it were a suggestion she was making to Sherlock about the state of the place. (He was half surprised she hadn’t done it herself—but then again, Sherlock was touchy about dust.)

            He paced back over to the cups of tea and touched them lightly. The one that was full was still warm; the empty cup, too, held traces of heat. John smiled at the sight of a few grains of sugar sprinkled around the empty cup. Sherlock had always loaded up his tea with sugar; sometimes it was his only source of calories for the day. John took in a deep breath and stretched his fingers toward the full cup. If he wasn’t meant to be here, he would find out—if this was some alternate universe he didn’t belong in, the cup would probably explode on contact and kill him, or he would start coughing up blood again, or a one-in-ten-billion stray bullet would find its way into his head just to spite him.

            John exhaled slowly as he wrapped his fingers around the handle, and lifted it to his lips.

            He took a sip.

            Nothing happened, nothing but John wincing at the fact that Sherlock had completely botched the tea—and it was definitely Sherlock; Mrs. Hudson would not have cocked this up so badly even on her worst day. But, John thought, it was clear it was meant for him: nothing added, unlike the sugar that had been Sherlock’s, and it was in his favorite mug…right beside Sherlock’s.

            John felt his chest tug a little. His heart raced as he braced himself to start wanting to heave, to try to fling himself down the stairs, to cough up blood, but none of it happened.

            His chest just tugged, and his heart just raced.

            _Sherlock—Sherlock who is here,_ alive _—Sherlock made this tea for me._

Sherlock had theories upon theories for John’s disappearance, it seemed. He noticed an honest-to-god quantum mechanics textbook thrown onto the sofa. A heavily bookmarked copy of _A Brief History of Time_ laid beneath it. John, tea still in hand, wandered over and extracted the book from the pile—apparently picking up things in the flat was fair game; nothing  had happened to him for it so far. Maybe he really _was_ in the future. Maybe that somehow made things different.

            The bookmarks were primarily in a section on time travel. As John flipped from one page, to another, to another, he wondered how many people had owned this book before—dozens of notes in different handwriting littered the pages.

            But it wasn’t different handwriting, was it?

            It was all Sherlock’s.

            John pulled out the note Sherlock had left him decades ago with one of the bullies’ money and held it up against the page. Not exactly the same—but close.

            One note said only: _He came back.—17 April 1993_

John flipped forward a few pages. The handwriting looked more like Sherlock’s current hand. _Three times is not a coincidence.—21 March 2003_

            So he didn’t remember John saving him from the overdose—maybe that was good. That was probably good. John shut the book carefully and laid it back in its place, remembering leaning over Sherlock, that chaste little kiss, the roaring in his chest not unlike the hammer beating in it now, harder and more persistent with every thought, a crescendo.

            And here Sherlock had been alone again, for the past however many months since he had somehow returned from the dead. John surmised seven or eight—the printouts at the bottom of the stack had been from July. An uneaten tray of biscuits shaped like bones and organs lie uneaten but almost certainly not forgotten in the corner by the bookshelf, and John had no doubt they were Molly’s work. He opened one of the desk drawers quietly and found their supply of Greg’s badges had been renewed.

            “Sherlock,” John muttered to himself again, chest tugging, heart racing as he realized that he was here, he was _here_ , Sherlock was alive, _somehow_ , alternate universe or not, and John was here too, and Sherlock _knew_ about the time-travel and the world _hadn’t_ imploded and maybe that would change at any second—and it certainly wasn’t any dramatic moment on the rooftop, but this, perhaps, _this_ , was John Watson’s chance. Perhaps—no, _certainly_ —it meant something, that everywhere John turned was evidence of Sherlock searching for him; that the extra cup of tea was not on account of a new flatmate but made for John himself; that everything else was coated in dust in neglect. Certainly it meant something that in John’s absence, Sherlock’s flat had become _more_ filled with John, bulletin boards covered in him, documents to aid in search for him. Sherlock _wanted_ John back, apparently at the exclusion of all else, and that _had_ to mean something more than that John was a convenience, than that he was an audience for a talent, than that he was a man with a gun and a steady hand. He was what Sherlock spent months actively seeking to restore, not replace. He was not settled for—no, all evidence pointed to that he was, _god_ , he was well and truly _missed_ , well and truly _wanted_.

            Maybe this was his chance.

            He heard himself exhale with forced calm as he crept back past the shower, toward Sherlock’s room. He might not be here at all. He might not be.

            There was a faint _thud_ from behind the door and a muttering of, “Damn,” whose baritone could only have been Sherlock’s.

            There were a thousand more _thuds_ from inside John’s chest. Should he just waltz in? Should he knock? How ought one do it, how ought a proper British man deliver the message, “Hello, I’m not dead, I’m just fine, though I’ve no idea how you’re alive. By the way, I think I’m in love with you”?

            John rapped at the door firmly—well, he tried, but it came out a bit quieter than he was expecting.

            “Mrs. Hudson, I…” came Sherlock’s voice as the doorknob turned. The door swung open.

            Time froze.

            Sherlock, ill-shaven, hair disheveled, seemed to swivel almost limply on a single fixed point in space as his eyes focused on John and the rest of his body carried on for a split second later before letting go of the door.

            “Good morning,” said John, or at least he tried to say, past a dry throat and the reeling of his insides not in rebellion against his actions but in pure, uncomplicated shock.

            “ _John,_ ” Sherlock breathed, with such heartbreaking familiarity that John had to steel himself not to simply fall against him in relief. It would have been a bad idea anyway, as John would have knocked him over; Sherlock looked even more like a twig than usual, gaunter than John had ever seen him.

            And before John could process anything further, there were hands on his arms, on his shoulders, on his neck, taking his pulse, tugging just slightly at his skin. Sherlock’s lips moved faster than John could read but he caught snippets of muttering, “a week at least,” “dehydrated,” “acute stress,” “Bart’s,” “a lift?” and then his head was being gripped on either side by Sherlock’s hands and held firmly so that he was forced to lock eyes with Sherlock, as if he weren’t already stuck doing so for possibly another two or thirty minutes anyway. “You’re _alive_ ,” Sherlock said, and John could feel the man’s hands shaking as they held fast to his head. Sherlock’s mouth hung open just slightly even after he spoke, as if he needed to draw in extra air to that great brain of his to process this fact; John watched it for several moments before catching what he was doing and refocusing on Sherlock’s pleading eyes, his brows generating so many concerned creases on his forehead. “What happened? Where have you been? _Why_ , John?”

            John felt his jaw tighten. He cleared his throat, still slightly raw, and tried not to think of the gut-wrenching horror of hearing Sherlock’s suicide call that second time. “I could ask you the same.”

            Sherlock’s grip faltered for a moment, his hands drifting away from John’s face, but then he laid them back on John’s shoulders. “I had to—Moriarty’s network—but John, that’s not important, that’s— _dull_ —John, I’ve been waiting _ages_ , tell me _everything_.”

            John took in a deep breath and stepped back to get a little more space from Sherlock. He scratched his neck and glanced down, hoping his ears did not look as warm as they felt. Sherlock had, by all appearances, faked his death and gone missing for something relating to dealing with Moriarty; John had accidentally pressed a button one too many times in the rain. He’d sodding _time-traveled_ and what had caused this cock-up wasn’t some paradox twisting things up, wasn’t some kind of unexpected error with the machine, it was John’s _finger_. “Just give me a minute, okay?” he finally stammered. He could tell Sherlock later, if the man didn’t somehow deduce it himself. “I’m having a hard enough sodding time figuring out whether you’re real or not.”

            “When you have eliminated the impossible,” Sherlock said, looking over John, eyes pausing on his shoes, on the notebook poking out of his pocket, on his hair, on his face, “whatever remains,” he took a step around John, maintaining the distance John had put there, “however improbable,” and he reached for the notebook as he took his next step, lifting it out of John’s pocket and flipping it to the back page, where he had drawn his map, gazing upon it with a kind of relief, mouth slackening into half a smile as if he himself had not believed it until that moment, “must be the truth.”

            “So you didn’t die, then,” John said plainly, lips pulled a bit taut, turning to face Sherlock as he flipped through the notebook and pressed his lips together, clearly trying to contain some smartarse comment, or deduction, or...or, John thought, looking more closely, some emotion.

            “Obviously. Had to be certain Moriarty’s people believed I was, however.” Sherlock traced his fingers over John’s notes, speaking softly. “So it _was_ you. You solved the poisoned apples case. Please John, tell me about _everything_.”

            “You owe me one _hell_ of an explanation,” John said, and his fists clenched briefly. He felt his breathing grow heavier and tried to put it back in check as he stared at Sherlock, his wide and eager eyes drinking John in like some kind of a miracle, begging for the details like a child for a bedtime story. He sighed. There would be time to make his frustration known—right now there was one thing that had to be done, that had to be fixed, before any more time passed, before it came and went once more, before it haunted him again.

            “And I will give it,” Sherlock said, “But…”

            “Have a seat on the sofa, Sherlock,” John interrupted him, and started moving that way himself.

            Sherlock swiveled toward him, and cursed his phone when it buzzed. He retrieved it from the pocket of his robe and wrinkled his nose upon checking it. “Ah. Fourteen text messages. Seven missed calls. Apparently, Mycroft’s seen you.” John wondered briefly why Sherlock had not, then, known he was coming, but—since when had Sherlock ever read Mycroft’s texts more than strictly necessary?

            “I’m sure he has,” John said, clearly unable to care even the slightest bit less beyond that. He held out his hand. “Your phone.”

            “My…” Sherlock narrowed his eyes slightly, and tentatively handed it to John, who muted it, retrieved his own mobile from his pocket, muted it as well, and stuffed them both deep beneath the cushions. Sherlock’s lips appeared to part slightly in a small gasp of recognition: that he himself had done just that, years ago.

            “Come on. Sit down. I’m not going to tell you everything just standing about in the hallway, I’m bloody exhausted.” He reached for the awful tea and took a sip, and watched Sherlock’s gaze become distant. “I guess kidnapping wasn’t such a bad theory,” John nodded toward the bulletin board and papers. “It does seem to tend to happen to me, where you’re concerned, doesn’t it?”

            Sherlock drifted toward the sofa, maneuvering around John and taking a seat much closer than John had been planning for. “John?” he started quietly as he sat. “I wanted to…say…”

            John paused, still, and willed himself to stay quiet.

            Sherlock’s mouth hung open for a few seconds before he shut it again, and his gaze seemed to bore into his own mind as he searched for words. He opened his mouth, and then shut it. And almost as if in a trance, still staring off into nothing, he reached for John’s hand. At the contact, Sherlock’s eyes, vivid-blue, bright, and wide in his complete loss for words snapped to John, and John’s to Sherlock. Sherlock squeezed John’s hand, and swallowed, and opened his mouth but all that came out was a strange sound that he appeared to pretend was a clearing of the throat. “I…”

            “I know,” John finally answered in the silence that hung between them, just over their joined hands. “Me too.”

           


	21. Morning in May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John smirked. “And I’m sure you recall that this was your idea.”  
>   
> “Not really,” Sherlock said absently.  
>   
> “Right.” John rolled his eyes and turned his head back to the band. No, of course it hadn’t been Sherlock’s idea. Sherlock had only stumbled into the room, said, “We’ll go to your concert,” as if making a concession to something John had requested at some point in time, and then collapsed on the sofa and pretended to sleep.  
>   
> Sherlock did eventually explain what concert he meant the next day—this morning—well—maybe more like eleven thousand mornings from right now—as they briskly fled the Holmes’ home for the back garden. It had been one hell of a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "From here on you can count on all things going the way they must have from the start."  
>  _— Topeka_ , by Ludo

 “John, please consider my voluntary presence here a compliment to your personal magnetism,” Sherlock said, about four bars in.

“Ta,” John answered inattentively, before his eyes snapped to Sherlock and he whispered a critical and suspicious, “Now, you’d b—”

“—As opposed to a compliment to your skill,” Sherlock finished with a sly smirk.

“I get it,” John shot back. Sherlock reclined in his seat to assume a position of prim and reluctant acceptance of his station, folded hands lying on crossed legs and eyes pressed shut to form the dictionary definition of “barest tolerance.” But, John thought with faint amusement that came into his mind in the tone of Sherlock’s voice, the lightly tapping foot clearly revealed that Sherlock was pleased to be here, listening to the band. His foot was so close to John’s that John could feel the tiny vibrations on the floor, which he fancied meant something extra beyond that. John caught Sherlock’s eyes sliding back open to look up at the clarinet section. “Personal magnetism, is it?”

“You make people want to do things that don’t make sense.”

John smirked. “I think you mean I make  _ you  _ want to do things that  _ do  _ make sense, even when you’d much rather be doing something completely daft.” He turned his head to face Sherlock as he added, “And I’m sure you recall that this was  _ your  _ idea.”

“Not really,” Sherlock said absently, his voice thick with boredom as his fingers joined his foot in the tapping, rapping against his leg.

“Right.” John rolled his eyes and turned his head back to the band. No, of course it hadn’t been Sherlock’s idea. Sherlock had only stumbled into the room one morning after a full night of lying in wait to ambush someone (and being pulled into a subsequent foot chase halfway across London, apparently—not that he’d told John about any of it), said, “We’ll go to your concert,” as if making a concession to something John had requested at some point in time, and then collapsed on the sofa and pretended to sleep. John had interrogated him and expressed a handful of his personal opinions on the entire lone ambush matter at a suitable volume, to no avail.

But no, obviously, of course, it hadn’t been Sherlock’s idea.

Sherlock did  _ eventually  _ explain what concert he meant the next day—this morning—well—maybe more like eleven thousand mornings from right now—as they briskly fled the Holmes’ home for the back garden. It had been one hell of a party.

 

***

 

John shoved his arms into his jacket and picked up his already brisk pace as Sherlock opened the door to the flowering and carefully tended back garden, a perfect picture for May. “Sherlock,  _ what  _ are we doing?”

“Killing two very fat birds with one stone,” Sherlock answered in his favorite tone, the implied “obviously” begging John to ask for details. John opened his mouth to do something roughly similar—albeit he’d had a little more  _ demanding _ in mind than  _ asking _ —but snapped it shut again when they rounded the corner from one very familiar row of shrubs into view of a newer, nicer gazebo, and found—

“The time machine?” John nearly whispered, and then whipped around to face Sherlock, pinning a glare against him. “ _ What _ —”

Sherlock held up something he’d carried out of the house with him—a laptop.  _ Mycroft’s  _ laptop.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” John swore none too quietly amidst the serene greenery. “ _ Mycroft  _ got his hands on this?”

“He has the plans and blueprints for the time machine on his laptop,” Sherlock explained. “Taken or otherwise extorted out of its original creator, doubtless.”

“Then let’s destroy the laptop and time machine both.” John approached the machine, his posture becoming more aggressive as the words  _ Mycroft _ and  _ blueprints  _ and  _ extorted  _ continued echoing through his mind.

“Wait,” Sherlock barked, outstretching an arm as if it could stop John. “John, you  _ do  _ remember what else I said?”

John halted, looked over Sherlock’s face, and relaxed slightly. He consciously loosened his shoulders as he realized how much he’d wound himself up. “Right…something about two fat birds?”

Sherlock gave a single nod. “Or,” he proposed, features brightening to their usual  _ aren’t-I-clever  _ gleam, “two relatively fit men,” he stepped toward John, “taking one last trip before we destroy the machine and the plans for good.”

 

***

 

“Sherlock,” John prompted quietly as the audience applauded the first piece, “aside from this concert lark  _ obviously  _ not being your idea, you’ve clearly done some planning for this.” After all, he’d brought with him several wallets filled with notes representative of those in circulation for any period of time in the recent past they may have wanted to visit. “So where are we going next?”

“I’ve no idea why you think I’ve got this so thoroughly planned out,” Sherlock said as the applause died down.

John opened his mouth to respond, but the auditorium had gone quiet again, the conductor lifting her baton and audience and concert band alike awaiting the downbeat. John narrowed his eyes. Most likely, Sherlock had timed his response just to keep John from prodding further. Ah, well—John would just have to reach his own conclusions. For all that Sherlock had tried to portray this adventure as one that could change direction at any moment, that he had come up with on a whim, he was too eager to  _ accidentally _ show off how prepared he’d been. His out-of-circulation notes dated all the way back to 1970, for instance; he’d also known what coordinates to use in the machine to take them to John’s old school in Chelmsford.  _ That _ , John thought, must have required his mother’s assistance. He’d also begun to suspect that the welcome back party Mummy Holmes had arranged for him—the party they had fled in favor of this tour through John’s past—had not been  _ entirely  _ Mummy Holmes’ idea. What’s more, he wasn’t willing to believe that the entire thing had been a ploy by Sherlock to get Mycroft’s laptop and destroy the machine. They hadn’t  _ had  _ to go on this trip at all. Instead, Sherlock insisted that they visit a few places in John’s past—“to get even,” he said—and whisked him off. The intent was clearly not  _ completely  _ academic, John mused, even if some of their stops had involved John’s time at university.

 

***

 

John paused on the pavement before turning the corner to the next street. “It’ll be this one,” he said quietly, after spending a moment making sure he’d correctly discerned the house’s shape and street address in the night’s pitch dark.

“Can we go in?” Sherlock responded with a whisper that John mused was just a bit more breathless than strictly required. Sherlock may not have noticed how tightly his hand held to John’s wrist. 

John shook his head. “Not going to happen. It’s not the biggest house to start with, and trust me when I say I know there’s nowhere we’re safe to hide when there’s a party like this going on.” As if on cue, another vehicle pulled up from the opposite side of the street, its headlights threatening to blind the pair before they ducked behind a hedge lining the garden of the house next door.

“I see.” Sherlock nodded, apparently filing away this information. John wondered whether Sherlock already had a mental map of what John’s university home looked like inside. He’d doubtless have started plotting out bedrooms for the housemates John had told him about along the way. “You’ll have hidden during some of them yourself, of course.”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock tilted his head one way and slid it to the left, as if this miniscule shift in his viewpoint could explain to him what was about to happen. “I assume this will eventually explain the bandaged hand. Rather quiet right now, though...”

“Not for long it won’t be,” John said, surprising himself with the way his words left at almost a growl. He saw Sherlock’s eyes dart across his furrowed brow and catch his fists just before they finished unclenching. Sherlock released John’s wrist to weave his fingers through John’s. “It’s not as awful as all that,” John finally added, and through his hand he felt some of the tension leave Sherlock.

The front door to the house burst open and from it erupted not only the usual level of noise one would expect from a large friendly gathering of university boys, but a barking shout of, “One more  _ bloody  _ word of that, Paul, and I’ll be giving the A and E a challenging new case study!” 

A tall and well-built young man came stumbling backwards out the door, but quickly regained his footing and charged back to the doorway, grabbing and yanking out a smaller man—a young John—with him. “You can’t sodding kick me out!” Paul screamed as he pulled back an arm and held tightly to young John’s collar with the other. 

Sherlock quite nearly lunged forward and into the home’s front lawn, and John’s fingers gripped Sherlock’s tightly. “You know I made it out just fine, you git,” John hissed.

“I know,” he answered, quiet but not terribly repentant in tone. He seemed to settle for intense study, his eyes scanning over the scene lit only by a glow from the house’s interior spilling out the front door. Based on the speed at which they darted over John’s features, and then revisited them, and then revisited them, John thought that Sherlock must have decided to vent his inability to help the young John by memorizing him instead. His right hand twitched periodically, as if part of his brain had devoted itself to sketching the young man, or else directing a musical composition about him.

When Paul tightened his grip on young John’s collar and balled his hand into a fist, John threw a jab at his face, smacking but not utterly smashing his nose. This dazed Paul just long enough for John to free himself and move clear of the haymaker. Sherlock’s hand nearly vibrated as John ducked under Paul’s fist. From Paul’s side John delivered a series of sharp blows to his ribs, and the older John wasn’t sure if the crack he heard was from the scene not fifty meters away or from his own memory of the fight, although physics and human physiology strongly suggested the latter. As John struck one more time, Paul whipped around, stepping in and bashing his elbow against John’s face. John stumbled back, falling to his arse on the lawn and scrambling to climb back up. 

Paul paced around John like he was thinking of kicking him before he was back on his feet. He was speaking as he eyed John, but too quietly to be heard from where John and Sherlock stood.

“What’s he saying?” Sherlock asked, .

“Something along the lines of ‘I can say whatever the hell I want about mattress munching Mike’ and…”

“...fuckin’ poof!” Paul ended his statement at a shout, and John, who had made it back to his feet, took one quick but brutal swing at Paul. His fist smashed into Paul’s teeth, and Paul reeled, stumbling back.

For a moment Paul seemed to consider coming back at John, but instead he settled for brushing his jacket off and readjusting it. He wiped at his mouth and couldn’t quite mask his surprise at what he felt— _ lots of blood and probably a tooth _ , John thought—but quickly recomposed himself. “Whatever,” he said, and started down the street, moving into the shadows in the opposite direction of where John and Sherlock waited.

“Oy,” the younger John called back to the small crowd that had gathered by the door. “I’d better get to hospital.” He motioned to the hand he’d hit Paul with. Paul’s teeth had cut into his skin. “Before this goes septic.”

John—the older John—nudged Sherlock. “We’d better get back,” he said. “Mike and I will be coming this way.”

“Gordon Bennett!” Mike was exclaiming to his companion. “You didn’t need to go to all that trouble, mate. Hey, look, if you come back and Nick’s being an arsehole of a roommate, you’re welcome at my place.”

“Nick’s always an arsehole of a roommate,” John said. The older John was watching Sherlock’s sharp and critical face as he listened and he could practically hear the analysis speeding through the man’s brain:  _ Nonchalance, clearly feigned. To reassure his companions, or himself?  _ Simultaneously, the corners of Sherlock’s lips lifted. John couldn’t quite decipher that one, except that it appeared whatever Sherlock was thinking of was important enough that he was memorizing the moment again.

As the young John and Mike approached, the older John tried to make off at a hard right to get out of their view, but instead Sherlock yanked him behind a much closer and much riskier hedge. 

“Yeah, but I bet he’ll be more of one now that you beat the shite out of his best friend,” Mike was saying.

“Mm,” John seemed to consider it. “You may be right on that one.”

“Well, it’s more than a little cluttered up right now, but I’ll get the sofa cleared off for you just in case,” Mike continued they turned the corner.

“Curiosity sated?” John asked when the other two were out of earshot, pointing to his hand.

“A measure of it, anyway,” Sherlock said, crouching a little more deeply to meet John’s eyes in the dark. “So quite the brawler even before your army days, then, John? How did you learn?”

“Lots of mistakes, mainly,” John said with a grin. He leaned in, somehow making a shuffle-step from a crouched position look natural. “For instance,” he said, assuming Sherlock’s know-it-all tone, “you have to be mindful of the distance at which your opponent is effective.” Before Sherlock could so much as open his mouth, John’s arm shot up and behind Sherlock’s head, his fingers gently digging into his locks and encouraging Sherlock forward and into a prolonged kiss. Sherlock’s hands gripped onto John’s shoulders for balance, and in retaliation John tugged Sherlock’s hair, lightly but threateningly.

When John let him go, Sherlock pulled back a little, drawing in deep and quickened breaths. “I see there are a few things I can learn from you yet,” he said, and John had to choke back a laugh to keep from ruining their cover.

 

***

 

John smiled to himself at the recollection. It had only really been a matter of hours since that particular excursion, but hopping around time had made a moment that technically took place a decade from now feel like it was a memory from years ago that had only remained so crisp in John’s mind from the number of times he’d revisited it. The song that the band was playing now was, too, etched into John’s memory, and his mind floated along it with ease. 

 

When applause erupted—or, at least, generally smattered the auditorium—John leaned over to Sherlock. “You never did answer me about where—by which I mean when—Mycroft took the machine,” he prompted. He  _ needed  _ to know how much Sherlock knew.

“How should I know?”

“I mean, the future, of course,” John continued. “But  _ when _ ? And how long has he been scheming this?”

“I try to have as little to do with my brother as possible, John. I’ve not exactly taken the time to interview him about his whereabouts. And if I’d have known about his activities earlier, don’t you think we would have done this sooner?”

John certainly wanted to reply  _ yes _ , but this was Sherlock, and while Mycroft was more of a mystery than most, John was fairly certain that if Sherlock could deduce he’d been in Afghanistan a few months before they’d met, he could also deduce that Mycroft had travelled to the future. In fact, being able to point out that his brother had three more gray hairs than expected for the amount of time that had passed since last seeing him seemed right up Sherlock’s street.

By why would Sherlock keep from John that he had known for longer, if he had? If he’d known for some time, Sherlock obviously had a reason for not going after Mycroft sooner. Quite possibly this had been the most convenient time to get a hold of Mycroft’s personal laptop. Granted, he had used rather unconventional means to do so—but this was  _ Sherlock _ . Of course he’d had to do something dramatic.

***

 

“This looks fantastic.” John smiled at Mummy—no, Violet—Holmes as the family took a seat around the table for an early but sizeable lunch. “Really, it’s like you read my mind and found my favorites.”

He saw her eyes dart over to Sherlock for a moment, glittering mischievously as she shared the true reason she knew what to make for the “Welcome Back” party that she’d arranged for John. “Oh, you know,” she said. “We pride ourselves on being mind-readers in this family.”

“Not nearly as thrilling as being a time-traveler, I’m afraid,” Mycroft chipped in dryly from the other side of the table, stowing a laptop beside his feet. He’d been busy with it since the moment he’d arrived. Sherlock shot him a glare; if it had been anyone else John would have assumed it was in his defense at Mycroft’s remark, but since it was an exchange between Sherlock and his brother, it probably meant about twenty other things, too. Violet gave Mycroft a reprimanding look as well; at that, Mycroft turned his attention to his food with a sneer that softened as his gaze fell upon the lemon pudding.

Sherlock’s father shook his head, rolling his eyes and then smiling at John, who got the feeling he was the sanest one in the family. John grinned back.

And then Mr. Holmes’ smile grew lazier, and slacker, and Violet dropped her fork as her arm fell limp to her side, and there was a loud  _ thump  _ as Mycroft’s face fell into his turkey. When all three of the others at the table had nodded off to sleep, Sherlock shot to his feet, pushing his chair back as he strode with casual grace to Mycroft’s laptop. He picked it up and only then glanced back at John, who had managed to turn his knuckles white by gripping his cutlery, jaw tense and mouth turned down. “What the  _ hell  _ is this? Did you just  _ drug  _ your family?”

“We have limited time to reach our initial destination,” Sherlock’s eyes scanned the area, ignoring John’s questions. After apparently being satisfied with what he did—or didn’t—find, he swept out of the room and gathered his coat from the entry. He grabbed John’s coat as well, and stuffed it against John’s chest when he returned to the table. “This is a matter of utmost importance.” With that, he strode toward the house’s back door with purpose. He held it open, waiting as John scrambled out of his chair, and smirked. “Time is of the essence, John.”

 

***

 

“It’s  _ Mycroft _ ,” John replied through the audience’s applause. “He shows up in your life whether you want him to or not. You’re telling me he had the blueprints for the time machine and it took you months to deduce it? Sherlock  _ Iraq-or-Afghanistan  _ Holmes?”

“I feel you are suggesting I let him get away with it.”

John shrugged. “I haven’t a clue why you would, but it seems like—” His eyebrows knitted together for a moment and he sat down a few seconds later than Sherlock as the applause died down. The sixth form students began filing up to the stage. The younger John stood up solemnly and shuffled back to seats in the front rows with his peers. John remembered how helpless he’d felt, then—totally alone, his parents at hospital with Harry instead of there to see his solo in the finale piece . He’d spent the entire concert wondering if Harry was all right, and he wouldn’t know for a while even after it ended. His brow creased. If only he could tell himself that it would be fine—it would save him several more hours of dread and fear. It would definitely save his clarinet keys some wear and tear from his fiddling with them as they sat through the older students’ portion of the concert. “Sherlock,” John’s voice lowered to what almost amounted to a growl. “Tell me it isn’t possible that you let Mycroft get away with as much as he did just so that  _ you  _ could time travel as well.”

“John, this is the  _ fifth time  _ you have asked me whether I have done so. You do know that some consider repeating the same behavior and expecting the outcome to change to be the definition of insanity?”

“I  _ know  _ you’ve used the time machine before this, Sherlock. For god’s sake, it’s not as if  _ Mycroft  _ left it in your parents’ back garden. It has to have been you,” he said. “Anyway, even ignoring that, you seem to have a fair idea of how to operate the thing.”

“Press up button to make number go up,” Sherlock rolled his eyes, “ _ very  _ complicated.”

John opened his mouth. “I—”

“Shh,” Sherlock lifted a finger to his lips, turning not just his face but his entire body attentively toward the back of young John’s head, rather than the preparing sixth form band, who had settled into their chairs and were warming up their instruments.

“Don’t play dumb,” John finally said, his face reddening a little. He had possibly omitted, in conveying the tales of his journey to Sherlock, exactly how he had ended up a year too far ahead when he returned. Sherlock had probably deduced it anyway; he wasn’t likely to accept  _ random glitch  _ as an explanation. “I mean, did you let Mycroft—”

Sherlock twisted his neck to sneer at John. “I do not ‘play dumb.’ Now, as I believe I said,  _ shh _ .”

***

 

“Well, Sherlock?” John muttered as he quickened his pace slightly, for once being the one to prompt Sherlock to do the same. He dodged around a group of students who appeared to be exchanging class notes. “How much have you used the time machine?”

“Are you leading me on a tour of your campus?” Sherlock asked instead. “Your pace seems counter to the goal, if that is the case.”

“You’ll see,” said John, relishing the moment with a little smirk. He craned his neck just enough to sweep a critical look around the area as they passed the library, veering so that most of his path put a row of bushes between himself and the main doors.

Several hundred meters later, at the doors to what John described to Sherlock as “the transplants building with a bunch of lab nuts up top,” John altered his beeline course ever so slightly so that he crossed paths with a student leaning against the wall, staring exasperatedly at an armful of brochures that she had yet to pawn off on other students. Exams were coming up soon—no one had time to go to a seminar that wasn’t required of them. John slowed as he reached her and took one of the papers from her hand with a smile. “Ta,” he said. His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer before he strode with determination into the building. Sherlock took a copy of the brochure for himself and hastened to catch up with John.

“Old girlfriend of yours?”

“Not why I brought you here, but yes. I very much doubt she’ll see me—the younger me—later, and remember a bloke who vaguely looked like a much older version of him and decide, ‘aha, time travel.’”

“Then why…”

“Isn’t it obvious?” John cut in with a grin. “Look at the brochure.”

Sherlock read the front. “A lecture on field medicine by an army surgeon,” he said quietly after looking it over. “I see.”

“I never would have gone to it,” John said. “I was too busy studying to even have known it was happening.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Some dolt abandoning a copy of the brochure in the middle of the extremely dull textbook I was studying from,” John dashed up some stairs, most pleased not to feel like he wanted to fling himself back down them. So far everything was pointing to this being the correct course of action. “Just as I was getting so bored I’d have probably gone to a lecture on the nuances of types of tobacco ash,” this garnered a frown from Sherlock, “let alone one on something that sounded at least a bit interesting.”

“And…”

“And…I dunno, maybe the dolt who left the brochure there was me.” Sherlock rolled his eyes at this, but his steps seemed to grow more purposeful as John sped up again. 

John led them out the back of the building and into another, this one housing a cafeteria. Some groups of students at the tables seemed caught up in animated conversation, but most were clearly revising for their upcoming exams, alone or in small groups. “We always sat near the corner,” John said quietly, leading Sherlock that way. “We’d leave class and go straight to studying to drill it into our heads.” He peered around one wall and turned back to Sherlock with a nod. “They’re just sitting down now,” he noted. “We’ll wait until I go to get a bite to eat.” Sherlock took John’s place, watching around the corner as John and his friends set their books down at the table, a few of them settling in and a few getting ready to grab some lunch first. His eyes lingered for several extra moments on John, taking in the way he flushed slightly at a joke one of his peers seemed to be making at his expense. The young John grinned as he feigned threatening one of his friends with a clenched fist. Even from this distance, Sherlock could clearly make out a bandage wrapped around John’s knuckles.

He turned back to John to interrogate him about this development. John’s lips were pressed together, apparently in thought. “John—”  

“You know,” John interrupted, “Rachel hadn’t met me yet, so this wasn’t a problem with her, but there’s a chance of my classmates feeling  _ very  _ weird about seeing an older version of someone they know well.” He gestured to Sherlock’s copy of the brochure. “You should be the one to deliver it. Just walk by, pretend like you’re a visitor looking for the loo or something, and drop that in the middle of the book I’ll have cracked open. You’re good at that sort of thing.”

He half expected Sherlock to make some snide “aren’t you glad you brought me along” remark, or to at least continue with whatever he had originally turned around to ask, but instead Sherlock simply nodded, clutching the brochure as he focused back in on the table. “There you go,” he muttered, and before John could say anything, Sherlock sauntered off, affecting the quick, haltingly hesitant stride of someone who looked like he very much wanted to belong, but had no idea where anything was. John watched as Sherlock approached the table, leaning over slightly in order to look like he did not want to be heard. He had apparently swept a few other papers off a different student’s table on his way over with the hand John couldn’t see, and now rested them atop John’s things as one of John’s classmates pointed down a different hallway and nodded at something Sherlock said. When he left the table, Sherlock picked all of the papers back up but the brochure, and John started walking back the way they came, leaving Sherlock to catch up to him.

When they’d made it back out of the building, Sherlock’s face bloomed into a smug smile.

“You look awfully proud of yourself,” John remarked. “I’m so sorry to have missed out on your doubtless perfect performance of ‘man who wants to find the toilet.’”

“Oh, don’t be obvious, John.”

John smiled and shook his head. Of course that wasn’t why Sherlock was smiling. John recognized the feeling from his own earlier travels: that balance of disbelief and satisfaction that came with the knowledge—the unusually instant, certain knowledge afforded by time travel—that one had had a profound influence on another’s life. Sherlock was giddy for exactly one reason. It practically echoed through John’s head, it emanated from him so intensely:  _ I got to be part of the reason you joined the army, John. _

“What now?” Sherlock asked. “That seminar isn’t for another week.”

“Well, we definitely  _ can’t  _ go to the seminar, since all of about fifteen people showed up.”

“Ah.” John noticed that Sherlock didn’t seem to view this as the setback he’d thought he might. “In that case, what about after that?”

“I spent about half the time I meant to spend studying for exams reading biographies on the bloke from the seminar,” he said, “and then on all of the other field medics he mentioned in his lecture, and then on field medicine practices.” At Sherlock’s thoughtful expression, John added, “Please don’t suggest  _ sitting there and watching me read  _ as a part of our  time-travel adventure, Sherlock.”

This did earn John a frustrated huff. “Fine. But what about after that?”

“Well...after all that reading, I did some thinking. And the more I imagined being in the army, the more work I took in clinics or hospital, the more I realized how bored out of my skull I was going to be if I was stuck there for decades. So...eventually…I enlisted.” He grinned and elbowed Sherlock. “Thanks.”

Sherlock straightened his back and lifted his chin, his annoyance fading. “Yes, well,” he said quietly. “Your going to Afghanistan was a bit of a necessity.”

John grinned at this. 

“Perhaps there is a different moment we can visit, however.”

“What’s that?”

Sherlock nodded toward John’s hand. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your bandaged hand back there, John. I’ve got four theories, of which we both know at least one must be true, and they all  _ beg  _ to be witnessed.”

 

***

 

The band switched music swiftly, pages shuffling against the music stands to form their own percussive interlude. One sheet drifted to the ground, and the student, mortified, left it be rather than chase after it into the flute section. His neighbor nudged her stand closer to him, angling it so they could both read the music. 

_Of course Sherlock would have time traveled on his own once or twice_ , John thought, given the unique opportunity of Mycroft’s reconstructed machine. The experience would be strange, new, interesting, and unpredictable. Sherlock wouldn’t have used time travel to cheat and solve cases more easily, but it opened up a new realm of questions and answers. Besides, although Sherlock had scarcely had an occasion to become bored in the past few months in _John’s_ opinion, time apparently worked much differently for Sherlock. Life might have suddenly become unbearable while John was out fetching shampoo. Once, John had returned from a night at the pub to find that Sherlock had flipped all of the furniture upside down and was trying to elevate himself into a bent-legged headstand with a folding chair resting upside-down on his bare arse.

“Did you go to the past, or the future? It was the future, wasn’t it?”

“Do you actually want to know?”

“Yes,” John insisted.

“Some of both. Mostly the future.”

“Right,” John nodded. “Right. Well, I don’t want to hear anything about the future, all right?”

“Noted,” Sherlock answered, and then said with a wave of his hands and a lower tone, “You’ll find out eventually anyway.”

“Oh, don’t make it sound so dramatic.” But he was glancing over Sherlock’s person and belongings now, as if he could find hints of where he had been. Sherlock’s usual coat was resting over the back of his chair, and he wore his typical style of sharp suit, something that made him look even more ridiculously tall and trim than he already was. Wherever he had gone, if it had been even remotely recently, it had not caused any changes or injuries.  _ No convenient suntan,  _ John thought.  _ On the positive side, looks like he didn’t get into any fistfights with golems, either _ . His coat pockets contained the money clips and wallets full of notes from different times; John had already seen little bits of the paper poking out of his trousers pocket when they’d paid at the Chinese restaurant.

But one of those bits of paper, upon second look, wasn’t money—it looked like a newspaper clipping. It must have had something to do with a case; Sherlock was hardly prone to saving such things out of sentimentality. Then again, he’d apparently planned out what was feeling more and more like a…a  _ honeymoon _ for himself and John; and whether he’d done so with ulterior motives or not, he’d also planned part of the “welcome back” party. Certainly Mummy Holmes had made it clear that it was her idea—in part thanks to the list of questions she’d pulled out in order to grill John about his time travel experience, covered along one margin with a series of equations and calculations—so if all Sherlock had wanted to do was use the opportunity to steal Mycroft’s laptop, he needn’t have advised his mother on what dishes to cook. Based on the scratched-out lines on her question sheet, John suspected Sherlock had also advised her on questions  _ not  _ to ask John.

Sherlock may have insisted time and again how much he was dreading the event, that he was wondering whether his mother had gone completely insane for making an entire luncheon out of it instead of just phoning John up to ask him her questions—but he’d obviously helped out more than he’d let on.

“What’s this?” John reached out and snatched the clipping from Sherlock’s pocket, eyes darting over it. The first chord of the sixth form student band’s second tune struck through the auditorium, sudden and cacophonous, and John nearly dropped the article. He spent the rest of the song, dissonant and full of clattering percussion, blizzards of woodwinds, and creaking brass chords, trying to steady his breathing and then pointedly avoiding Sherlock’s gaze.

“It’s still many, many years away,” Sherlock reassured him quietly as the audience around them applauded. “And see that?” he nudged a finger at a sentence referencing John with the word ‘husband’ beside his name. “We have a great many years left for me to drive you up the wall, John. You already told me it’s impossible to change the future. You’re stuck with me.”

John finally looked up at Sherlock with steely eyes, mouth wrenched into a grimace as he exerted effort to keep them that way. “So, you die first,” he said quietly, or perhaps through quietly restrained anger. “This is your obituary. Did you go to your own funeral?”

“May have done,” Sherlock said. “I was curious.”

“You absolute sodding git,” John hissed.

“It’s okay, John.”

“No, it’s  _ not _ ,” he breathed heavily, still struggling to keep his voice to a whisper. “Where else did you go, Sherlock? What else did you see?”

“John, you  _ just _ insisted I not tell you.”

“Right,” John fought to gather his composure. “Right. I did, didn’t I?” He looked back down at the article.

“At least it wasn’t drugs,” Sherlock suggested.

John shot him a glare. “I already watched you almost die of that once.”

Sherlock didn’t say anything, but reached for John’s hand and squeezed it a little, focusing back on the band, which was settling in after having changed sheet music to the next song. He tucked the clipped-out paper back into his pocket. “I will tell you one thing,” Sherlock finally said. “A couple weeks after I die, an absolutely superb Indian restaurant moves in just down the street from 221B. It’s worth hanging around for.”

“I can’t believe you,” John breathed into one hand, which he pressed against his face. “Sherlock Holmes, you are the single most frustrating, most  _ ridiculous _ man ever to have populated the Earth.”

“Good job I’ve got an equally frustrating voice of reason following me about, then.” 

“I’m not done being mad at you for dying,” he said in response to Sherlock’s tentative smile.

 

***

 

Upon reflection, John was fairly certain the only reason he and Sherlock hadn’t gone at each other’s throats in the days following John’s return was shellshock.

Hearing about what Sherlock had done while he was “dead”—and then his search for John when he had come back—had played in John’s head like a film; at random Sherlock interrogated John about his time travel as if each journey was the chapter of a book. Sherlock refused to let John sleep in a separate room, and John was none too fussed about the idea; he fell asleep and woke up with Sherlock’s hand resting on his.

But over those days they both grew quieter.

“John,” Sherlock nibbled on the toast John had begun making for him each morning. “If you’re upset, you should speak up. I doubt keeping your grievances from me will help the situation.” He held up a hand as John opened his mouth. “There  _ is  _ a situation.”

“Of course there’s a fucking situation,” John growled. “This is  _ real _ , Sherlock. I thought you were dead for almost a  _ year _ .”

“I know. I saw.”

“Taking that case—using that machine—it wasn’t just a lark for a fun story.” John heard himself getting louder, felt his vocal chords strain against the desire to crack under the stress. “I was trying to save your life, Sherlock. I thought you killed yourself and I had  _ no idea why _ .”

“No,” Sherlock said, “you were worried that you  _ did  _ know why. But it’s fine, John. We’re fine.” He added quietly, “In any case, you at least had a headstone to visit.”

John clenched his fists and took a large, forceful stride at Sherlock. “Don’t  _ start— _ ”

“No, John,” Sherlock cut in with a sharp bark, his eye going wild with fury for a moment. “ _ I thought they got you _ . One of the threads of Moriarty’s web I hadn’t taken down yet. I infiltrated a fair few of them, John. I know what they did to people. And I know,” he raised his voice and sent John a glare when he opened his mouth to argue, “you’re strong. You may even have been through it before, which is exactly  _ why  _ I was concerned you were being put through it again.” He lowered his voice to a normal speaking tone, which after that sounded to John like a whisper. “I doubt the psychological trauma would be any easier on you the next time around.” He took another deep breath. “And all this after that damned letter you left. As if I could simply set the entire matter out of my mind thinking you’d died in some suicide mission to save me. Searching for you felt more...useful. I left the letter be as an outlier, an anomaly. To be dealt with later.” As he spoke his eyes darted toward where he had left the note sitting and grew distant. 

John felt his throat tighten as he tried to swallow the idea of Sherlock turning a blind eye to inconvenient evidence. “You ignored it.”

“I… Yes, I did.” Sherlock did not look up, his eyes still fixed on where the letter had sat. “You did make that very difficult, however.”

“I thought ignoring me came naturally to you.”

Sherlock winced. “Fine,” he finally said. “If you wish for proof that I understand how real this was for you, I shall provide it in whatever form you demand.”

John’s fingers curled and tightened into his palms and then unrolled. They did so several times before he turned on his heel and marched over to the hook his jacket hung from and extracted his notebook. He brought it back to the table and slid it across to Sherlock.

“I’ve looked at this, John. I don’t need to see it again. You  _ know  _ I’ve looked at this.” He flipped it open anyway and paused on his own drawing, tracing his fingers over the lines.

“Your turn,” said John.

Sherlock’s eyes lifted from the notebook slowly to meet John’s, and he tilted his head for a moment before deciding what he was meant to do. Sherlock dug behind the sofa for the bulletin board he had since hidden away, and laid it on the table between them.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you remembered things well enough to figure out the order of my visits,” John said, eyes following one numbered date and location to the next. “Your mother helped you, though.”

“She helped you, too.”

“That she did.” John read over some more of the descriptions on the board. “I guess the same goes for Mycroft.” He pointed to ‘ _ internal bleeding? _ ’ “Did you get these from the CCTV or something?”

“Mostly.”

“God, that was hell,” John said.

“What, Mycroft?”

“No—well, yes, that too, but no. I meant the whole—finding out what it was like to defy time, or destiny, or whatever, shite.”

Sherlock’s face lit up with the energy of a hundred burning questions. “Did y—”

“I swear to god, Sherlock,” John cut in before he could continue, “you have asked me  _ everything  _ you possibly can about what happened at St. Bart’s, so please shut up about it. I don’t have anything more to say.”

Sherlock nodded quietly, although John could tell from the way his eyes continued boring into him that this meant, “I’ll ask later.”

“What else?” Sherlock asked.

“One thing I haven’t told you about yet.”

Sherlock’s back straightened. “Go on.” After a moment, he prompted with an extra, “Please.”

“Do you remember a time when you really did almost die?”

“Many,” Sherlock said, frowning.

“I mean—not casework stuff. A time where maybe you thought back on it and couldn’t come up with a single reason you should have made it out intact.”

“John, I can recall about twenty times in the past five years alone. You’re very good at pointing these occasions out for me.”

“And you’re playing like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Clearly you’re about to tell me about something else you did when you time-travelled. Now, you seemed to favor visiting me farther in the past; but, if you did save me from something, you’d be more likely to know what I needed saving from if it was something that had happened after we’d already met. However, I have _always_ done the sorts of experiments you like to tell me are certain to kill me—so any time period in my life is fair game. It would have to be an event I don’t personally recall. This may mean your involvement was subtle or secretive; but I’ve managed to find out just about everything else you’ve done, so it may also mean I was not in a position to observe or remember what had happened. If my life was in jeopardy in a situation outside of casework, which was most concentrated in the past five or ten years, it was either when I was too young to remember anything at all, or, more likely, it was due to… _oh_.”

“Figured it out, then?”

“That was you— _ you  _ called the ambulance. I assumed…it seemed that Mycroft…well, he  _ did  _ take credit for it. John, I…” 

“Later,” he said quietly. “Your turn.”

Sherlock turned around and lifted his shirt partway off his torso to reveal white lines and bumps of scars in stripes along his back. John had glimpsed them once or twice over the past couple of days, but never at an opportune time to ask about them. “What was it?”

“One of the last pockets of Moriarty’s supporters that seemed likely to rise up and take his place. Not nearly as subtly, mind you—well, obviously. Anyway, as I said, I know what they do to people. I’d planned to get caught so I could get a look at the inside of their operation—it was one of the last places I thought I might find you,” he admitted. “And bloody Mycroft had already worked his own way in, sat there and watched me get tortured for a good long while before deigning to reveal that he was there.”

John circled around the table and tentatively reached one hand out, letting it hover over Sherlock’s back. “Does it bother you to feel someone touch them?”

“Not you, John,” he answered quietly, and shivered when John’s fingers came to rest against one line.

“Thank you,” John said. “For trying to save me.” 

The moment had remained quiet and still up until Sherlock’s mobile started buzzing. “Bloody Mycroft,” he grumbled, but read through the text messages anyway, even answering one. They had moved on about their morning, then, as if nothing had happened, but John noticed Sherlock making more snide remarks at the telly that night than he had been before. Sherlock drifted off on the sofa even before John—probably more out of boredom than anything—and so John laid one hand on top of Sherlock’s with the intent to nod off there too. He glanced up at Sherlock for a moment and saw that the man’s eyes were open, just slightly, watching John.

“Go back to sleep, you useless git.”

And they did.

 

***

 

John brandished the article. “I expect I’m going to be more than a little pissed off at you for this dying lark of yours for a few more moments at least.”

Sherlock did smile at that. “In that case, I will stay quiet and leave you to your fury.” He appeared to make himself busy by picking up John’s jacket from the back of the chair, fumbling through its pockets as if he expected to find John’s little notebook there. While John tried to keep his jaw clenched to prove his point, he swore he saw from the corner of his eye that Sherlock slipped something  _ into  _ the jacket pocket. Alas, Sherlock held onto the jacket until the end of the concert, perhaps specifically so that he could insist on putting it onto John for him.

John patted down the sides of his jacket as they stood up and waited for some of the people in seats behind them to disperse. He felt around a small object that hadn’t been there before. At the feel of its approximate size and shape, his heart skipped a few beats. “Sherlock?”

“Mm?”

“What have I got in my pocket?” 

“Oh, that,” Sherlock made a show of brushing off the question.

John slid his fingers into the pocket and felt around, not pulling the object out. “You put a sodding ring in there,” he whispered, although the room around them was now filled with the loud chatter of proud parents. “You absolute  _ bastard _ .”

“Want me to take it back?” Sherlock smirked.

“Sherlock,” John tried to sound apprehensive, and failed, largely due to the grin spreading across his face, “this had  _ better  _ not be some damn trick. I know you like trying to be all bloody clever. ‘Now we have to go find the dead body this ring was stolen from’?” When Sherlock didn’t snatch the ring back and whip down the hallway with an explanation of the murderer’s motives, John’s grin softened to a brilliant smile. “You aren’t kidding, are you?” 

Sherlock’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s for a case,” he started, and before John could so much as twitch a muscle, he continued, “of sorts, I mean—a bit of a mystery. What caused what, and what happened first?” He took in a deep breath. “I hope it is a matter that we spend the rest of our lives investigating together.” John winced a little bit, and Sherlock mirrored the expression, flushing slightly.

John rolled his eyes and looked away, trying simultaneously to file away the moment and to forget it had happened, chuckling to himself in the process before breaking out into laughter, speechless.

And it was a good thing, too, because if he had been speaking with Sherlock, he might have missed the sight of concertgoers filing out the door in front of them, of the backs of heads bobbing in conversation, of the head of one old man with sandy-grey hair leaning up against the shoulder of a younger, taller, and very familiar-looking bloke with dark curls as they walked arm in arm out into the dark December chill.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahaha! I am actually finally finishing/posting the end of this! I don't know that the gap of over two years between the last chapter and this one is terribly justifiable, but, at least a few months of that wait were fruitful as it took me a while to realize how I wanted to end this story.
> 
> Pretty sure I had about 20 things I wanted to say when I posted this, and I remember almost none of them. But, if you have any comments/questions/want to discuss anything, I will totally keep an eye on the comments section. Thanks to you all for the many kudos, comments, bookmarks, recs, and other positive feedback/reactions you all have given to this story. I still smile when I get the AO3 "kudos" emails and see that people are reading it even now.
> 
> An extra bajillion thanks to [Morwen_Eledhwen](archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Eledhwen/pseuds/Morwen_Eledhwen) for looking over this chapter time and time again over the course of the past almost two years. Every time I emailed her with an update after months of nothing, she was kind enough to get back to me quickly and with so many helpful notes. This chapter changed a LOT (for the better!) and it's all thanks to her.
> 
> The title of this chapter comes from lyrics Ludo's "Broken Bride" album (which inspired this story), and the phrase is mentioned both in Part II and in Part IV.
> 
> My next aspiration is to write an original novella- or novel-length story. It will probably involve a lady trucker taking down a business built on coercing ghosts.
> 
> Anyway, I would love to hear what you thought, and I hope you enjoyed this story!


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